"But isn't she a Grace? Isn't she loveliness itself?"
"I hope you think so!" she whispered, with arch frankness, a sweet coquettish confidence ravishing to his soul.
"I do!" And in the privacy of telling her so, his lips just brushed her ear. Did you ever, in whispering some secret trifle, some all-important, heavenly nothing, just brush the dearest little ear in the world with your lips? or, in listening to the syllables of divine nonsense, feel the warm breath and light touch of the magnetic thrilling mouth? Then you know something of what Penn and Virginia experienced for a brief moment in the Grotto of Undine.
Just then a duplicate glow, like a double sunrise, one part above and the other below the horizon, appeared at the farther end of the grotto. It increased, until they saw come forth from behind an upright rock an upright torch; and at the same time, from behind a suspended rock beneath, an inverted torch. Immediately after two Cudjoes came in sight; one standing erect on the rock above, and the other standing upside down on—or rather under—the rock below.
"Take your torch, Carl," said Penn, "and go around and meet him."
The boy returned to the niche; and presently two Carls, with two torches, were seen moving around the rim of the corridor, one upright above, the other walking miraculously, head downwards, below.
The two Carls had not reached the rock, when the two Cudjoes stooped, and took up each a stone and threw them. One fell upward (so to speak), as the other fell downward: they met in the centre: there was a strange clash, which echoed through the hollow halls; and in a moment the entire nether hemisphere of the enchanted grotto was shattered into numberless flashing and undulating fragments.
Virginia had already perceived that the appearance of a concave sphere was an illusion produced by the ceiling lighted by Cudjo's hidden torch, and mirrored in a floor of glassy water. Yet she was entirely unprepared for this astonishing result; and at sight of the Cudjo beneath instantaneously annihilated by the plashing of a stone, she started back with a scream. Fortunately, Penn still held her close, no doubt in a fit of abstraction, forgetting that his arms were no longer necessary to prevent her falling, as when she leaned to look at the shadowy Undine.
"All those stalactites," said he, as the two torches were held towards the roof, "are of the most beautiful crystalline structure; and the spaces between are all studded with brilliant spars. The first time I was here, it was April; the mountain springs were full, and every one of these stone icicles was dripping with water that percolated through the strata above. The effect was almost as surprising as what we saw before Cudjo cast the stone. The surface of the pool seemed all leaping and alive with perpetual showers of dancing pearls. But now the springs are low, or the water has found another channel. Yet this basin is always full."
"Why, so it is! I had no idea the water was so near!" And Virginia, stooping, dipped her hand.