A crash of laughter, more discordant and deriding than any I had yet heard, invaded my ears. Looking on in the direction of the sound, I saw a little elderly woman, much taller, however, than the goblins I had just left, seated upon a stone by the side of the path. She rose, as I drew near, and came forward to meet me. She was very plain and commonplace in appearance, without being hideously ugly. Looking up in my face with a stupid sneer, she said: “Isn’t it a pity you haven’t a pretty girl to walk all alone with you through this sweet country? How different everything would look? wouldn’t it? Strange that one can never have what one would like best! How the roses would bloom and all that, even in this infernal hole! wouldn’t they, Anodos? Her eyes would light up the old cave, wouldn’t they?” “That depends on who the pretty girl should be,” replied I. “Not so very much matter that,” she answered; “look here.” I had turned to go away as I gave my reply, but now I stopped and looked at her. As a rough unsightly bud might suddenly blossom into the most lovely flower; or rather, as a sunbeam bursts through a shapeless cloud, and transfigures the earth; so burst a face of resplendent beauty, as it were _through_ the unsightly visage of the woman, destroying it with light as it dawned through it. A summer sky rose above me, gray with heat; across a shining slumberous landscape, looked from afar the peaks of snow-capped mountains; and down from a great rock beside me fell a sheet of water mad with its own delight. “Stay with me,” she said, lifting up her exquisite face, and looking full in mine. I drew back. Again the infernal laugh grated upon my ears; again the rocks closed in around me, and the ugly woman looked at me with wicked, mocking hazel eyes. “You shall have your reward,” said she. “You shall see your white lady again.” “That lies not with you,” I replied, and turned and left her. She followed me with shriek upon shriek of laughter, as I went on my way. I may mention here, that although there was always light enough to see my path and a few yards on every side of me, I never could find out the source of this sad sepulchral illumination. CHAPTER XVIII “In the wind’s uproar, the sea’s raging grim, And the sighs that are born in him.” HEINE. “From dreams of bliss shall men awake One day, but not to weep: The dreams remain; they only break The mirror of the sleep.” JEAN PAUL, _Hesperus_.