I breathed , and there was the face ; I held my breath , and it was gone . Had it passed away or faded into nothing ? I doubted whether it had ever been . My sweet readers , what a dreamy and delicious hour did I spend where that vision found and left me ! For a long time I sat perfectly still , waiting till it should reappear , and fearful that the slightest motion , or even the flutter of my breath , might frighten it away . Thus have I often started from a pleasant dream , and then kept quiet in hopes to wile it back . Deep were my musings as to the race and attributes of that ethereal being . Had I created her ? Was she the daughter of my fancy , akin to those strange shapes which peep under the lids of children 's eyes ? And did her beauty gladden me for that one moment and then die ? Or was she a water-nymph within the fountain , or fairy or woodland goddess peeping over my shoulder , or the ghost of some forsaken maid who had drowned herself for love ? Or , in good truth , had a lovely girl with a warm heart and lips that would bear pressure stolen softly behind me and thrown her image into the spring ? I watched and waited , but no vision came again . I departed , but with a spell upon me which drew me back that same afternoon to the haunted spring . There was the water gushing , the sand sparkling and the sunbeam glimmering . There the vision was not , but only a great frog , the hermit of that solitude , who immediately withdrew his speckled snout and made himself invisible -- all except a pair of long legs -- beneath a stone . Methought he had a devilish look . I could have slain him as an enchanter who kept the mysterious beauty imprisoned in the fountain . Sad and heavy , I was returning to the village . Between me and the church-spire rose a little hill , and on its summit a group of trees insulated from all the rest of the wood , with their own share of radiance hovering on them from the west and their own solitary shadow falling to the east .
The afternoon being far declined , the sunshine was almost pensive and the shade almost cheerful ; glory and gloom were mingled in the placid light , as if the spirits of the Day and Evening had met in friendship under those trees and XXXXX themselves akin .
die found haunted hovering insulated kept returning slain waited withdrew