The cries died away in the distance, and soon the only sound she could hear was the loud beating of her own heart, and she went on her way at a less rapid pace. Very late, when the moon's rays became less brilliant, unable to stand out against her fatigue any longer, she sank down on the heath and fell fast asleep. She was four leagues from Dosenheim, near the source of the Zinzel. Bremer was not likely to come so far to look for her. CHAPTER II. It was broad daylight when Myrtle awoke amidst the deep solitudes of the Schlossberg, beneath an old fir-tree overgrown with moss and lichen. A thrush was whistling overhead; another was answering in the distance far down the valley. The morning breeze was fanning the rustling foliage; but the air, already warm, was loaded with the sweet perfumes of the ground-ivy, the honeysuckle, the woodruff, and the sweetbriars. The young gipsy opened her eyes with astonishment remembering, with surprise and delight, that the voice of Catherine would no more trouble her, calling, "Myrtle! Myrtle! where are you, you idle child?" she smiled, and listened to what gave her pleasure, the note of the thrush singing among the trees. Near at hand a spring was bubbling out of a cleft; the girl had but to look round to see the living stream running, sparkling and clear, amidst the long grass. From the rock high overhead hung an arbutus loaded with its gorgeous freight of scarlet berries. Though Myrtle was thirsty she felt too idle to move amongst all this beauty and all this harmony, and she dropped her pretty brown face, smiling and admiring the daylight through her long dark lashes. "This is how I am always going to be," she said. "How can I help it? I am an idle girl. I was made so." Dreaming in this lazy way, the picture rose up in her mind of the farm-yard with the proud cock strutting among his hens, and then she remembered the eggs, how they used to find them in the straw in some corner of the barn. "If I had a couple of hard-boiled eggs," she thought, "just like those Fritz had yesterday in his bag, with a crust of bread and a little salt, I should like it very well. But what signifies? When you can't get eggs you have blackberries and whinberries." A scent of whinberries made her little nostrils dilate with expectation. "There are some here," she said; "I can smell them." She was right. The wood was full of them. In another minute, not hearing the thrush, she raised herself on her elbow and noticed the bird picking at the arbutus-berries. Then she went to the brook and took a little clear water in her hollow hand, and observed that there was plenty of watercress.