The Argosy — page 168: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Cyril Trevor's Wood-Nymph. 153 ‘Merrily, merrily shall I live now, Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.”’ “The nymph of the stream,” I murmured. ‘ Here she comes!” Crish, crackle, swish! ‘The brambles on the other side were parted, and a young girl stood upon the bank. She seemed about seventeen, but well formed for her age. Her feet were concealed by sabots, and she wore a short cloak, like that of a French officer, over her dress. An old hat, which had slipped back during the struggle with the thorns, framed a quaint little face more quaintly still. ‘Delicious !” she exclaimed in English, peering eagerly into the green shadows. ‘‘ How cool the water looks! Oh, dear! How tired I am, and how hot my head and feet are !” Flinging an armful of ferns on the ground, she seated herself on the brink of the fountain, tapping the surface of the water with the point of her sabot. She was strangely beautiful, but the great soft, brown eyes, fixed dreamily on the surface of the pool, would have redeemed the most irregular features from the charge of ugliness. “T will!” she suddenly cried. ‘‘ There is no one here to see, and no one anywhere to care.” I watched her in amused perplexity. The girl pleased me, and the wild, graceful freedom of each motion contrasted agreeably with the studied elegance of polite society. ‘““ What a goose I am,” she soliloquised, pausing in the act of throw- ing off her little sabots, as a slight change of my position rustled the leaves of which my couch was composed. ‘‘ That is the consequence of unorthodox.amusements. Every leaf that stirs must be construed by my guilty conscience into someone looking at me. A pretty sight they would see too! The idea is laughable!” She took off her hat and let loose a mass of dark curly hair, which floated about her shoulders in picturesque disorder. ‘Then, lying down on the edge of the pool, she stooped over and dipped her face in the water, pouring it with her little hands over the top of her head, till her curls were dripping like a water spaniel; then laughing as she wrung out a shower of diamonds. At that moment an accident occurred for which I have been thank- ful ever since. In casting off the sabots, one had fallen dangerously near the edge of the bank, and this, now receiving an impetus from its heedless little owner, quietly slipped into the water, commencing a journey on its own account by jogging over the miniature waves with most prosaic obstinacy. A cry of dismay followed the discovery. What was to be done? ‘The shoe was already out of reach and how could it be recovered? I laughed silently. All trace of my dislike to women had evaporated. I blessed that shoe and waited heart- lessly till the sense of loss brought tears into the brown eyes; then softly drawing aside the branches, I stood up and spoke. ‘‘Mademoiselle!” was all I said, though I saw that she was English. GOnNIGDOOKS (C(O)