The Story of a Child

no other events were engraven upon my memory, and I relapsed into a twilight state similar to that at the commencement of my life. But

an almost delicious terror when one day I found myself alone in the midst of tall June grasses that grew high as my head.

ose house in town was directly next to ours. Perhaps I had visited Limoise the preceding summer, but at that time I was very like a cocoon before it has crawled

mystery and charm of a primeval forest. I crossed a border of box, and I was in the midst of a large uncultivated tract filled with climbing asparagus and great weeds. Then I cowered down, as is the fashion of little children, that I might be more effectually hidden by what hid me sufficiently already, and I remained there motionless with eyes dilated and with quickening spirit, half afraid, half enraptured. The feeling that I experienced in the presence

ot reply, but instead lay as close as possible to the ground, and sou

om the mockery of her tone I felt sure that she had spied me. But I could

o call, and her voice grew merrier and

pon the twisted branch of a tree

and I came out of my

ge life I spent many a happy hour sitting upon it contemplating the peaceful and quiet country, and there I mused, to the chirping accompaniment of the crickets, of those distant countries fairer and sunnier than my own. And upon that summer day

cannot recall the time when I did not know her. Later I came to love her as a sist

ividness from the two new emotions with which it is blended: the enchanting uneasiness I felt at the invasion of green nature