For the rest, there was no hurry. There was another six months in which to make up his mind. Meanwhile, also, he made frequent use of the ‘Crack,’ and the changes in his soul went rapidly forward. CHAPTER XIX There was a Being whom my spirit oft Met on its visioned wanderings, far aloft, In the clear golden prime of my youth’s dawn, Upon the fairy isles of sunny lawn, Amid the enchanted mountains, and the caves Of divine sleep, and on the air-like waves Of wonder-level dream, whose tremulous floor Paved her light steps;—on an imagined shore Under the grey beak of some promontory She met me, robed in such exceeding glory, That I beheld her not _Epipsychidion_ One afternoon in late September he made his way alone across the hills. Clouds blew thinly over a sky of watery blue, driven by an idle wind the roses had left behind. It seemed a day strayed from out the summer that now found itself, thrilled and a little confused, in the path of autumn—and summer had sent forth this soft wind to bring it back to the fold. The ‘Crack’ was always near at hand on such a day, and Paul slipped in without the least difficulty. He found himself in a valley of the Blue Mountains hitherto unknown, and, so wandering, came presently to a bend of the river where the sand stretched smooth and inviting. For a moment he stopped to watch the slanting waves and listen, when to his sudden amazement he saw upon the shore, half concealed by the reeds near the bank—a human figure. A second glance showed him that it was the figure of a young girl, lying there in the sun, her bare feet just beyond reach of the waves, and her yellow hair strewn about the face so as to screen it almost entirely from view. A white dress covered her body; she was slim, he saw, as a child. She was asleep. Paul stood and stared. ‘Shall I wake her?’ was his first thought. But his second thought was truer: ‘Can I help waking her?’ And then a third came to him, subtle and inexplicable, yet scarcely shaping itself in actual language: ‘Is she after all _a stranger_?’