The face and head of a beautiful girl of that sweet age between childhood and womanhood, yet nearer childhood, appeared above the surface. This fair creature was clad in a long flowing white garment that completely vailed her perfect form as she floated gracefully about, disporting herself in the bright pellucid water. Julius Luxmore dared scarcely breathe, lest he should dissolve the lovely vision from which he could not withdraw his fascinated gaze. As she swam or dived, or reared her radiant head with its golden hair all spangled with the diamond dew that sparkled in the slanting sun rays, she still sang snatches of a wild, gay air, though in a somewhat lower key, as though her sportive evolutions in the water, carried off some portion of the overflowing life that had at first inspired her song. So she continued to sport and sing—sometimes diving to the bottom and bringing up handsful of the pearl-like pebbles that she threw high into the sky to see them fall a mimic hailstorm into the calm water that then leaped up in a thousand rainbow sparkles!—sometimes swimming joyously on to the mouth of the fairy inlet, and whirling around and hurrying back, lashing the water with her white arms in a whimsical affectation of terror; and sometimes with bosom level and head only slightly raised, floating upon the surface as idly and lightly as a lotus leaf, until the sun went down. “That is my Princess of the Isle!—that is my Star of the Sea!—as poor Victoire called her! It can be no other!” said Julius Luxmore, gazing in a sort of ecstacy of anticipated possession on the bewitching creature. “Ah, Barbara, Barbara! even you would scarcely blame me for being dazzled by such a prize!” he continued, devouring this beauteous vision with his eyes. “At this moment a voice was heard from the Island—— “Etoile! Etoile! my Pearl!” “Here, Maman, here!” responded the clear, silvery tones of the swimmer. And at her voice, a handsome quadroon woman, middle-aged, and neatly dressed, emerged from the bushes overhanging the spot, and came cautiously down to the brink of the inlet. As she appeared, the little maiden came out of the water, laughing, and wringing her dripping hair. “Little Nereid!” said the nurse, fondly holding out her hand to assist her in the assent of the bank. “No! unless you mean the Queen of the Nereids!—Amphitrite, if you will, nothing less!” laughed the maiden, as she joined her nurse, and both disappeared among the trees.