"Don't be afraid," says Olga. "Fancy Bella running the risk of having a bad eye or a pink nose in the morning! She knows much better than that."
"Tell Miss Browne to make haste," says Mrs. Herrick, turning to Kelly. "Because we are impatient,—we are longing to precipitate ourselves into the moonlight. Come, Olga; come, Monica; they can follow."
Miss Browne, however, on being appealed to, shows so honest a disregard for covering of any sort, beyond what decency had already clothed her with, that she and Kelly catch up with the others even before the fountain is reached.
It is, indeed, a fairy dell to which they have been summoned,—a magic circle, closed in by evergreens with glistening leaves. "Dark with excessive light" appears the scene; the marble basin of the fountain, standing out from the deep background, gleams snow-white beneath Diana's touch. "The moon's an arrant thief." Perchance she snatches from great Sol some beauties even rarer than that "pale fire" he grants her—it may be, against his will. So it may well be thought, for what fairest day can be compared with a moonlit night in languorous July?
The water of the fountain, bubbling ever upwards, makes sweet music on the silent air; but, even as they hark to it, a clearer, sweeter music makes the night doubly melodious. From bough to bough it comes and goes,—a heavenly harmony, not to be reproduced by anything of earthly mould.
"O nightingale, that on yon gloomy spray
Warbles at eve, when all the woods are still,
Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill."
Clear from the depths of the pine woods beyond, the notes ascend, softly, tenderly. Not often do they enrich our Irish air, but sometimes they come to gladden us with a music that can hardly be termed of earth. The notes rise and swell and die, only to rise and to slowly fade again, like "linked sweetness long drawn out."
Seating themselves on the edge of the fountain, they acknowledge silently the beauty of the hour. Olga's hand, moving through the water, breaks it into little wavelets on which the riotous moonbeams dance.
"Where are your bangles, Olga? you used to be famous for them?" asks Desmond, idly.
"I have tired of them."