CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST MOONRISE.
BUT sleep does not last forever, and after a time Eva awoke. And when she first sat up, and looked around her, she could not understand, for a moment, how it could be that everything was so changed; why the brook should be gone, and its voice silenced; the path no more to be seen; and how she should be sitting on this soft bed of velvety-green moss, with the little figure lying in her lap. Then, all at once, she remembered all that had happened the day before,—and as she thought it over, like a pleasant, yet indistinct dream, she recalled the two fair forms which had hovered over her sleep,—faintly conscious of their presence, though unaware of the words which they had spoken. Whether they were real, or only a dream, Eva did not know; she only recalled them mistily; for, in this strange, silent land, through which she was wandering, she never knew what was real or what unreal,—it was all alike to her.
And as nothing that happened astonished her, so never for one moment did her thoughts go back to the father and mother she had left, or to the little baby-brother cooing in his cradle. It was as though they never had existed, so completely were they forgotten. The Present, such as it was, had effaced all memory of that Past.
Sitting on her soft, mossy bed, still holding in her little hands the motionless little figure which the fountain had left her, and which, Eva knew,—though how she knew it she could not tell,—was something to be cared for and guarded, as being more helpless than herself. Eva thought over all the adventures of the day before, and while she wondered what would come next, she wished she could once more hear the pleasant murmur of the brook which had guided her, for what purpose she knew not, to this spot.
Only a few moments had passed since the child awoke, when a low, musical chime rang through the forest. It died away and then returned; and then came again and again, in tones so marvellously sweet that Eva, who had just taken the little figure into her hands, dropped him into her lap, and pushed her long golden curls away from her face, the better to listen to the melody.
Once more it came, and once more died away into silence. And then there was a low, rushing sound, and, far in the distance, Eva saw arise, as it were from out of the earth, among the trees, the tiny silver crescent of a young new moon,—and as she looked at it, it rose higher and higher, and faster and faster, till it reached, in a few minutes, the very centre of the sky, the child’s blue eyes still following it; and when once there it paused, and floated among the strange, gleaming clouds, which surrounded it, like a little shining boat.
With a sudden impulse Eva bent down and kissed the little figure lying in her lap; and then she looked up at the crescent of the moon, as upon the face of an old friend; and she would have sat there longer watching it, but that all at once a little, weak voice said: