Years passed on, and Syrinx grew into a tall and slender maiden, with long fair hair and great gray eyes, with a look in them that made her seem to be always listening. Out in the woods there are so many sounds for any one who has ears to hear--the different notes of the birds, the hum of the insects, the swift, light rustle as some furry four-legged hunter creeps through the underwood. Then there is the pleasant, happy murmur of the breeze among the leaves, with a different sound in it for every different tree, or the wild shriek of the gale that rends the straining branches, or the bubbling of the spring, or the prattle of the running stream, or the plash of the waterfall. Many are the sounds of the woods, and Syrinx knew and loved them all until "Beauty born of murmuring sound, Had passed into her face." "Have a care, Syrinx," her playfellows would say sometimes. "If you wander alone in the woods, some day you will see the terrible god Pan." "I should like well to see him," the maiden made answer one day to an old crone who thus warned her. "The great god Pan loves the woods and everything that lives in them, and so do I. We must needs be friends if we meet." The old woman looked at her in horror and amaze. "You know not what you say, child," she made answer. "Some aver that none can look upon Pan and live, but of that I am none so sure, for I have heard of shepherds to whom he has spoken graciously, and they never the worse for it. But of this there is no doubt--whoever hears the shout of Pan runs mad with the sound of it. So be not too venturesome, or evil will come of it." Now Syrinx might have taken warning from these wise and kindly words. As it was, she treasured them, and only wondered what this god could be like, the sound of whose shout made men run mad. She feared to see him, and would have run swiftly away if she had caught a glimpse of him, and yet she went continually to the far and silent groves whither, so the shepherds said, Pan was most wont to resort.