imposing, and in which she betrayed a slight tendency to that wish to mystify that distinguishes her delightful sex,--“there came a spirit to me from the world of voices, and it whispered to me sounds that I never have forgotten, long, long before I was born.”--“Really?” said the stranger. “Oh yes!--long before I could gather a fig, or gather the water in my hand, and that must be before I was born. When I _was_ born, I was not so high as the rose-bud, at which I tried to catch, now I am as near the moon as the palm-tree--sometimes I catch her beams sooner than he does, therefore I must be very old, and very high.” At these words, the stranger, with an expression indescribable, leaned against a tree. He viewed that lovely and helpless being, while he refused the fruits and water she offered him, with a look, that, for the first time, intimated compassion. The stranger feeling did not dwell long in a mansion it was unused to. The expression was soon exchanged for that half-ironical, half-diabolical glance Immalee could not understand. “And you live here alone,” he said, “and you have lived in this beautiful place without a companion?”--“Oh no!” said Immalee, “I have a companion more beautiful than all the flowers in the isle. There is not a rose-leaf that drops in the river so bright as its cheek. My friend lives under the water, but its colours are so bright. It kisses me too, but its lips are very cold; and when I kiss it, it seems to dance, and its beauty is all broken into a thousand faces, that come smiling at me like little stars. But, though my friend has a thousand faces, and I have but one, still there is one thing that troubles me. There is but one stream where it meets me, and that is where are no shadows from the trees--and I never can catch it but when the sun is bright. Then when I catch it in the stream, I kiss it on my knees; but my friend has grown so tall, that sometimes I wish it were smaller. Its lips spread so much wider, that I give it a thousand kisses for one that I get.” “Is your friend male or female,” said the stranger.--“What is that?” answered Immalee.--“I mean, of what sex is your friend?”