I pushed through a thick and aromatic clump of myrtles, and peering between the narrow leaves, perceived the cold, bright face of a little marble god beneath willows; and, seated upon a starry bank near by, one whom by the serpentry of her hair and the shadow of her lips I knew to be Anthea.
"Why are you weeping?" I said.
"I was imitating a little brook," she said.
"It is late; the bat is up; yet you are alone," I said.
"Pan will protect me," she said.
"And nought else?"
She turned her face away. "None," she said. "I live among shadows. There was a world, I dreamed, where autumn follows summer, and after autumn, winter. Here it is always June, despite us both."
"What, then, would you have?" I said.
"Ask him," she replied.
But the little god looking sidelong was mute in his grey regard.