Then the whole wood sang to the breeze that had suddenly freshened, the light flashed and danced through the dancing leaves, the trees for a moment seemed to shake off the indolence of summer, and the forest of Sénart spoke--spoke from its cavernous bosom, where the pine-trees spread the hollow ground, from the pools where the bulrushes whispered, from the beech-glades and the nut-groves. The oaks, old as the time of Charles IX., the willows of yesterday, the elms all a-drone with bees, and the poplars paling to the trumpet-call of the wind, all joined their voices in one divine chorus: "I am the forest of Sénart, old as the history of France, yet young as the last green leaf that April has pinned to my robe. Rejoice with me, for the skies are blue again, the hawthorn blooms, the birds have found their nests, the old, old world is young once more. For it is May." "It is May; it is May!" came the carol of the birds, freshening to life with the dying wind. Then we went on our road, Eloise with her hands filled with freshly gathered violets. I thought I knew the forest and the direction to take for the great pool; but we had not gone far when our path branched, and for my life I could not tell which to take. The path to the left being the most alluring, we took it; and lo! before we had gone very far, recollection woke up. This narrow path, twisting, turning, sometimes half obscured by the luxuriance of the undergrowth, was the path I had taken years ago--the path leading by the old-forgotten gravel-pit into which I had fallen, maiming myself for life; the path along which I had followed the mysterious child so like little Carl. Perhaps it was the old recollection, but the path for me had a sinister appearance; something that was not good hung about it. Unconsciously I quickened my steps. I was walking in front; and as we passed the spot where I had seen the child standing and looking back at me from amidst the bushes, Eloise laid her hand on my arm, as if for closer companionship. "I do not like it here," said she. "And I saw something--something moving in those bushes." "Never mind," I replied; "we will soon reach the open." When we did, and when we found ourselves in a broad drive which I remembered, and which led to the place I wanted, the sweat was thick on my brow; and I determined that, go back how we might, I would never enter that path again. It had for me the charm and yet the horror that we only find associated in dreamland. "There was a child amidst the bushes," said Eloise. "I just saw its head; and--I don't know why--it frightened me, and----" "Don't," said I. "I believe that place is haunted. Let us forget it." The grand pool at last broke before us through the trees--a great space of sapphire-coloured water, where the herons had their home, and the dragon-flies. It was past noon. We were hungry, so we sat down on a grassy bank by the water, opened the basket, and, spreading the food on the grass between us, fell to.