FIDO AND FIDUNIA.
Once within a deep and gloomy forest there dwelt a lonely maiden. She had never known any companionship but that of nature, animate and inanimate. She loved the birds, the shy playful squirrels, and all the various animals, which having always known her there, friendly and harmless, regarded her in their turn, with trustful affection.
It made no difference in their feelings towards the young girl that she was not beautiful. Her thick sandy hair hung in coarse straight elf locks on her shoulders. Her skin looked rough, and her features were not prepossessing. But these poor ignorant creatures only noticed that her voice was low and exceeding sweet. When she stooped to fondle the frolicsome rabbits, or perchance to bind up the leg of some wounded hare, they thought her tender fingers wondrous soft, and her warm cheek felt very smooth to them as she pressed it against their furry coats, and pettingly coaxed them to linger a moment on her lap.
Strange to say, though the little maid had no distinct remembrance of human fellowship, yet she spoke in silvery tones a language which you or I, dear children, should very well understand.
She dwelt in the hollow of an old tree, and few were the wants of her simple life. A clear spring, bubbling up among the rocks near at hand, in the centre of an open grassy space, formed a natural bath, where every morning, undisturbed by fear of man, she bathed herself, and wrung the water from her dripping tresses.
In summer time she often slept high up between the forked branches of a mighty cedar-pine, where with sticks and long grass she had woven herself a sort of nest. From hence also she could contemplate the stars, between whom and herself there ever seemed a link of sympathy. To her untaught imagination it appeared that the heavenly luminaries were happy in being among others of their kind. Whereas, had she but known it, each one of those seemingly tiny lights glowed myriads of miles apart from its nearest neighbour.
Fidunia dwelt serene, content with her lot; yet it was only natural that in her maturing bosom the yearning instincts of womanhood should awake, and that she longed, with an intensity of which she herself was hardly aware, for some creature to whom she could recount, and with whom she could share, the pleasures and pains of her solitary life.
In the forest where she had her home there were no great alternations of heat and cold, nor was the length of the days so different as we find it in our own more northerly climate. Still it was spring-time in this land of which I speak. The fair soft tread of summer already sent a reviving thrill through the woods and glades, and Fidunia's thoughts turned anew to her forlorn condition.
She remarked, as was her wont, the habits of the brute-world around. Every bird had its mate. The sober rooks perambulated the green sward in pairs. The thrush wooed his love in songs of gushing melody. The tender turtle-doves cooed ceaselessly to each other. The very mole that burrowed by the fountain side, brought a sable bride to enjoy with him the hidden comforts of his subterranean dwelling.
Fidunia sat and pondered over these things. Again and again she tried, like Narcissus, to see her image in the crystal spring. But kind nature, careful to spare the little maid a needless pang, ruffled the translucent surface so perpetually, that the young girl's face only cast a dancing shadow on the bubbling water amid the rocks.