"And to his bosom warm and rough
Drew the gold reeds close enough.
"I don't remember the rest," she broke off. "But there! That's a pipe fit for any shepherd."
She put it to her lips and blew. I shall not pretend that the result was melodious: she whistled much better without the reeds; but the sight of her, sitting on the fallen tree beside the lake, beating time with her foot, her head thrown back, her eyes half-closed in a mockery of rapture at the shrill, wheezy uncertainties and ineptitudes she evoked, thrilled me with new and wonderful longings. A heart, a spirit like hers would never grow old! She was next of kin to all the elusive, fugitive company of the elf-world. And on such a pipe as she had strung together beside that pond, to this day Sicilian shepherd boys whistle themselves into tune with Theocritus!
She put it to her lips and blew.
"Take it," she said; "I can't tell you more than I have; and yet it is all there, Chimneys. Read the riddle of the reeds if you can."
I took the pipe and turned it over carefully in my hands; but I fear my thoughts were rather of the hands that had fashioned it, the fingers that had danced nimbly upon the stops.
"There are seven reeds,—seven," she affirmed.
She amused herself by skipping pebbles over the surface of the water while I pondered. And I deliberated long, for one did not like to blunder before Hezekiah! Then I jumped up and called to her.