As a description of her appearance his observation was not amiss. The little Virginia Dare, a child no longer, seemed rather a spirit than a maid. Yet in the gentle curves of her form and the expressive depth of her hazel eyes there was already a promise of maturity. They were a pair of rovers, these two, without guile, without one marring trace of worldly comprehension, without that indefinable, but ever-apparent, disingenuousness of face and voice that comes when the fruit of knowledge has been tasted; they were deer, revelling in their forest freedom, and sea-gulls, loving the water. Sylvanites, barbarians, brother and sister, going and coming as they willed, they were always together, and, as yet, in no way conscious of themselves. And the guardian angel was Eleanor. To her the freedom of their companionship was a source of constant joy. Had she not done well to leave their Eden unbounded by convention? Could she not thus in a measure regain what she herself had lost, and allow Virginia the happiness which had been withheld from her? “Yes,” she answered, in one of her reveries, “it is well.” And from the day of that first decision, Virginia, always clad in white draperies, loose and clinging, went barefoot, hatless, and unrestrained. The years of restriction were yet in the future. Indeed, as the two now stood together on the shore—primordial beings, all unblemished by a past—that future, though approaching, seemed far away. “Come,” said Virginia, after she had taunted him sufficiently to please her whim, “you so nearly found me that I will grant reward for the tedious quest.” She went to the base of the cliff, while he, enchanted by her every motion, and striving to guess the nature of the guerdon, followed her in silent wonder. Near the cliff she paused and took a shell, pink, shallow, and translucent, from an old wampum-pouch that, in their childhood, he had given her. Next, she plucked from a vine that rambled down the cliff-side a cluster of grapes, green as their own leaves, and almost bursting. “There,” she said, casting them on a strip of mossy ground; “now wait,” with which she trod upon the cluster with her bare feet; then, as their luscious juice ran freely, held them aloft, and the shell beneath, so that into it the sparkling drops fell one by one until they overflowed the brim. And now, after touching the nepenthe to her lips, she held out the delicate chalice to him and bade him drink. As though participating in some magic that would presently enchant them both, he tasted, and would have emptied the shell delightedly, but on a sudden he started and, letting fall the fairy cup, pointed to the sea. With a cry of astonishment, Virginia and her comrade ran to a winding path which led to a higher vantage-point, and in a moment they stood upon a headland, side by side, he transfixed, she trembling with excitement.