dream-realm of joy, the central form of which was everywhere present, although unbeheld. Then, remembering how my songs seemed to have called her from the marble, piercing through the pearly shroud of alabaster—“Why,” thought I, “should not my voice reach her now, through the ebon night that inwraps her.” My voice burst into song so spontaneously that it seemed involuntarily. “Not a sound But, echoing in me, Vibrates all around With a blind delight, Till it breaks on Thee, Queen of Night! Every tree, O’ershadowing with gloom, Seems to cover thee Secret, dark, love-still’d, In a holy room Silence-filled. “Let no moon Creep up the heaven to-night; I in darksome noon Walking hopefully, Seek my shrouded light— Grope for thee! “Darker grow The borders of the dark! Through the branches glow, From the roof above, Star and diamond-sparks Light for love.” Scarcely had the last sounds floated away from the hearing of my own ears, when I heard instead a low delicious laugh near me. It was not the laugh of one who would not be heard, but the laugh of one who has just received something long and patiently desired—a laugh that ends in a low musical moan. I started, and, turning sideways, saw a dim white figure seated beside an intertwining thicket of smaller trees and underwood. “It is my white lady!” I said, and flung myself on the ground beside her; striving, through the gathering darkness, to get a glimpse of the form which had broken its marble prison at my call. “It is your white lady!” said the sweetest voice, in reply, sending a thrill of speechless delight through a heart which all the love-charms of the preceding day and evening had been tempering for this culminating hour. Yet, if I would have confessed it, there was something either in the sound of the voice, although it seemed sweetness itself, or else in this yielding which awaited no gradation of gentle approaches, that did not vibrate harmoniously with the beat of my inward music. And likewise, when, taking her hand in mine, I drew closer to her, looking for the beauty of her face, which, indeed, I found too plenteously, a cold shiver ran through me; but “it is the marble,” I said to myself, and heeded it not. She withdrew her hand from mine, and after that would scarce allow me to touch her. It seemed strange, after the fulness of her first greeting, that she could not trust me to come close to her. Though her words were those of a lover, she kept herself withdrawn as if a mile of space interposed between us. “Why did you run away from me when you woke in the cave?” I said. “Did I?” she returned. “That was very unkind of me; but I did not know better.” “I wish I could see you. The night is very dark.” “So it is. Come to my grotto. There is light there.” “Have you another cave, then?” “Come and see.”