It seemed to the Prince now and then that there was something in the garden which moved, distinct from the flowers, and shifting with a will of its own. Though the sun shone full down, casting clear shadows across the lawns, this that he saw was altogether misty and faint. Now it seemed like a feather blown to and fro in the wind, and now like broken gossamer threads, or like filmy edges of clouds melting away in the heat. Where it went the flowers moved as though to make way for it, swaying apart and falling together again as it passed. The Prince watched and watched. He tired his eyes with watching, yet he could see no more; and no way could he find to the garden, for all the doors leading to it were locked fast and barred. There was another strange thing he noticed which seemed to him to have no meaning. All over the garden, between the trees and the sky, was stretched a silver net, so fine that it showed only as a faint film against the blue; but a net for all that. Here and there, the light of the sun catching it, hung sparkling in its silver meshes. It was like the net that a gardener throws over strawberry beds or currant bushes to keep off the birds from the fruit. So was it with this net; through it no bird could enter the garden, and no bird that was in the garden could leave it. All day the Prince had these two things before his eyes to wonder about, till the sun went down and it began to get dusk. At the moment when the sun sank below the earth there was a sound of opening doors all over the house. The Prince ran and found one of the doors leading into the garden wide open, and through it he could see the stir of leaves, and the deep colours of the flowers growing deeper in the dusk; only the evening primroses were lighting their soft lamps. From a distant part of the garden came the sound of falling water, and a voice singing. As he approached he saw something shining against the dark leaves higher than the heads of the flowers; and before he well knew what he saw, he found before his eyes the most lovely woman that the mind of man could believe in. In her hand hung a watering-can, with the water falling from it in sprays on to the flower beds beneath. Her head was bent far down, yet how she looked slender and tall! She was very pale, yet a soft light seemed to grow from her, the light of a new moon upon a twilight sky. And now the Prince heard clearly the sweet voice, and the words that she was singing: “Listen, listen, listen, O heart of the sea! I am the Pearl of pearls, I am the Mother of pearls, And the Mother of thee. Glisten, glisten, glisten, O bed of the sea! Lost is the Pearl of pearls, And all the divers for pearls Are drowning for me.”