While she spoke, a breeze swept through the oak wood, the trees began to bend their tops, and the under branches were stirred with leafy murmurings, as the young girl passed beneath. She lifted her fair face to meet them. "Ah 'tis delicious, this soft scented wind; it touches my face like airy kisses; it makes the leaves seem to talk to me in musical whispers. Dost thou not hear them too, little Resa? and dost thou not--?" Hyldreda suddenly stopped, and gazed eagerly down the road. "Well, sister," said Resa, "what art dreaming of now? Come, we shall be late at church, and mother will scold." But the elder sister stood motionless. "How strange thine eyes look; what dost thou see, Hyldreda." "Look--what is there!" "Nothing, but a cloud of dust that the wind sweeps forward. Stand back, sister, or it will blind thee." Still Hyldreda bent forward with admiring eyes, muttering, "Oh! the grand golden chariot, with its four beautiful white horses! And therein sits a man--surely it is the king! and the lady beside him is the queen. See, she turns--" Hyldreda paused, dumb with wonder, for despite the gorgeous show of jeweled attire, she recognized that face. It was the same she had looked at an hour before in the little cracked mirror. The lady in the carriage was the exact counterpart of herself! The pageant came and vanished. Little Resa turned round and wiped her eyes--she, innocent child, had seen nothing but a cloud of dust. Her elder sister answered not her questionings, but remained silent, oppressed by a nameless awe. It passed not, even when the chapel was reached, and Hyldreda knelt to pray. Above the sound of the hymn she heard the ravishing music of the leaves in the oak wood, and instead of the priest she seemed to behold the two dazzling forms which had sat side by side in the golden chariot. When service was ended, and all went homewards, she lingered under the trees where the vision, or reality, whichever it was, had met her sight, half longing for its reappearance. But her mother whispered something to Esbern, and they hurried Hyldreda away. She laid aside her Sunday mantle, the scarlet woof which to spin, weave, and fashion, had cost her a world of pains. How coarse and ugly it seemed! She threw it contemptuously aside, and thought how beautiful looked the purple-robed lady, who was so like herself. "And why should I not be as fair as she? I should, if I were only dressed as fine. Heaven might as well have made me a lady, instead of a poor peasant girl."