Flor rummaged for her castanets, her tambourine, her ankle-rings,--they had all been thrown hither and thither,--and at length, as Pluto's torch flared up, ran tinkling along the turf, into the glow; and her voice broke, as she danced, into high, clear singing, triumphant singing, that welled up to the very sky, and made the air echo with sweetness. As she sang, all her slender form swayed to the tune, posturing, gesturing, bending now, now almost soaring, while, falling in showers of twinkling steps, her fleet feet seemed to weave their way on air. What ailed the girl? all asked;--such a play of emotion of mingled sorrow and ecstasy, never before had been interpreted by measure; so a disembodied spirit might have danced, and her dusky hue, the strange glancing lights thrown upon her here and there by the torch, going and coming and glittering at pleasure, made her appear like a shadow disporting before them. At length and slowly, note by note, with wild lingering turns to which the movement languished, her tone fell from its lofty jubilance to a happy flute-like humming; she waved her arms in the mimic tenderness of repeated and passionate farewells; then, still humming, faint and low and sweet, tripped off again, through the glow, along the turf, into the shadow, and out of sight; and it seemed to the beholders as if a fountain of gladness had gushed from the sod, and, playing in the light a moment, had run away down to join the river and the breaking sea. Mas'r Henry called after Flor to throw her a penny; but she failed to reappear, and he tossed it to Pluto instead, and forgot about her. * * * * * So, bailed out and stuffed with marsh-grass in its crazy cracks, the old scow was afloat, the rope was cut, and by midnight it went drifting down the river. Waist-deep in shoal water, its appropriator had dragged it round inside the channel's ledge of rocks, with their foam and commotion, to the somewhat more placid flow below, and now it shot away over the smooth, slippery surface of the stream, that gave back reflections of the starbeams like a polished mirror.