It had enticed us with daisies and rewarded us with roses . Blossom and lyric had waited on our wishes . Thoughts , careless and sweet , had visited us . Laughter had been our comrade and fearless Hope our guide . But now the shadow of change was over it . `` There she is , '' cried Felicity . The Story Girl stood up and waved her chrysanthemums at us . We waved wildly back until the buggy had driven around the curve . Then we went slowly and silently back to the house . At fifteen , I became a resident in a country village , more than a hundred miles from home . The morning after my arrival -- a September morning , but warm and bright as any in July -- I rambled into a wood of oaks , with a few walnut-trees intermixed , forming the closest shade above my head . The ground was rocky , uneven , overgrown with bushes and clumps of young saplings , and traversed only by cattle-paths . The track , which I chanced to follow , led me to a crystal spring , with a border of grass , as freshly green as on May morning , and overshadowed by the limb of a great oak . One solitary sunbeam found its way down , and played like a goldfish in the water . From my childhood , I have loved to gaze into a spring . The water filled a circular basin , small but deep , and set round with stones , some of which were covered with slimy moss , the others naked , and of variegated hue , reddish , white , and brown . The bottom was covered with coarse sand , which sparkled in the lonely sunbeam , and seemed to illuminate the spring with an unborrowed light . In one spot , the gush of the water violently agitated the sand , but without obscuring the fountain , or breaking the glassiness of its surface . It appeared as if some living creature were about to emerge -- the Naiad of the spring , perhaps -- in the shape of a beautiful young woman , with a gown of filmy water-moss , a belt of rainbow-drops , and a cold , pure , passionless countenance . How would the beholder shiver , pleasantly , yet fearfully , to see her sitting on one of the stones , paddling her white feet in the ripples , and throwing up water , to sparkle in the sun !
Wherever she laid her hands XXXXX grass and flowers , they would immediately be moist , as with morning dew .
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