See, for thee the waters wait.”
Obedient to the voice, the child stretched forth her hand, and as her slight fingers closed upon the little, motionless form, a bright and dazzling crimson light seemed to flash everywhere, and the water, losing its solidity, began once more to gleam and sparkle, and to sink again into the earth; and in another moment it was gone, and in the place where the fountain had played there was now a bed of soft, green moss, through and around which was twined a vine, whose leaves were mingled with clusters of bright scarlet berries. Then for the first time she missed her little stick; and she looked for it, but it was nowhere to be found.
And then the sky grew dark, as the glorious crimson light slowly faded away, and one by one stars peeped out from the sky; and Eva, still clasping the little figure which had come so strangely to her, to her heart, lay down quietly upon the soft, green moss, which seemed to have sprung up there expressly as a bed for her, and before many minutes had passed she was asleep.
But while she slept, there hovered over her two fair white forms, who looked at her and smiled, and then one of them whispered to the other, in the silvery voice of the brook:
“The worst is over.”
“No,” the other replied. “Although the boy is safe, for a time, in the hands of his protector, his punishment is not yet over. Love must teach him obedience,—that alone can appease and work out the will of Fate.”
“And we can do no more for him!”
“We can only wait, and hope.”
A moment later, and the two bright forms were gone. And, watched by the twinkling stars, lulled by the low murmur of the gentle breeze playing among the trees of the great forest, the fair child slept, holding clasped to her innocent breast the helpless figure which had come to her as the gift of the fountain.
