And once or twice she did leave the path, and turn her back upon the brook. But every time that she stepped off the beaten track, faint though it was, her feet grew heavy, and clung to the earth, so that she could scarcely move; and the waves of the brook leaped higher and higher; and the dancing flames grew brighter; and the silvery voice, louder and clearer than ever, would call, “Follow, follow me!” till the child was always glad to return to the path, and then once again the way would grow easy to her feet, and the water would resume its former tranquillity. On, on she went, still following the course of the brook. But at last a new sound mingled, though but faintly, with its musical ripple,--the distant voice of falling waters. And when first this new tone reached Eva’s ears, a few signs of life began to show themselves,--a sad-colored moth flitted lazily across the path into the forest,--a slow-crawling worm or hairy caterpillar hid itself under a stone as Eva passed,--the bright eyes of a mouse would peep out at her from under the shelter of a leaf, or else a toad would leap hastily from the path into the waters of the brook. Still Eva walked onward, more eagerly than ever, for though the “Follow, follow me!” of the brook was now silent, she heard the voice of the other waters, and at every turn in the path she looked forward eagerly for the little joyous cascade she expected to see. For it she looked, yet in vain: though the sound of the waters grew louder, she saw nothing, till at last a sudden gleam of golden light, from a long opening in the forest, fell across the now placid waters of the brook; and Eva looked up to see, far away in this opening, a fountain playing in clouds of golden spray, amid which danced sparkles of light; and the path, parting abruptly from the brook which it had followed so long, led down the opening in the forest directly to this play of waters, whose voice Eva had heard and followed. And as she turned away from the little brook, whose course and her own had so long been the same, it seemed to her that even the silvery ripple of its waters died away into silence; and, looking back once more, after she had taken a few steps, upon the way by which she had come, lo! the brook and its waters had wholly disappeared, and an impenetrable forest had already closed up the path behind her. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER III. _THE GIFT OF THE FOUNTAIN._