And then—far through the softening mists, he caught a movement that was not the swaying of verdure, a shimmer of silver more solid than mist, Something approached. He watched the figure as it moved, now visible, now hidden by trees; very soon he perceived that it was human, but it was almost upon him before he realized that it was a girl.

She wore a robe of silvery, half-translucent stuff, luminous as star-beams; a thin band of silver bound glowing black hair about her forehead, and other garment or ornament she had none. Her tiny white feet were bare to the mossy forest floor as she stood at no more than a pace from him, staring dark-eyed. The thin music sounded again ; she smiled.

Dan summoned stumbling thoughts. Was this being also—illusion? Had she no more reality than the loveliness of the forest? He opened his lips to speak, but a strained excited voice sounded in his ears. “Who are you?” Had he spoken? The voice had come as if from another, like the sound of one’s words in fever.

The girl smiled again. “English!” she said in queer soft tones. “I can speak a little English.” She spoke slowly, carefully. “I learned it from she hesitated—_ “my mother’s father, whom they call the Grey Weaver.”

Again came the voice in Dan’s ears. “Who are you?”

“T am called Galatea,” she said. “I came to find you.”

“To find me?” echoed the voice that was Dan’s, “Leucon, who is called the Grey Weaver, told me,” she explained smiling. “He said you will stay with us until the second noon from this.” She cast a quick slanting glance at the pale sun now full above the clearing, then stepped closer. “What are you called?”

She out her bare arm. “Come,” she smiled.

Dan touched her extended hand, feeling without any surprise the living warmth of her rosy fingers. He had forgotten the paradoxes of illusion; this was no longer illusion to him, but reality itself. It seemed to him that he followed her, walking over the shadowed turf that gave with springy crunch beneath his tread, though Galatea left hardly an imprint. He glanced down, noting that he himself wore a silver garment, and that his feet were bare; with the glance he felt a feathery breeze on his body and a sense of mossy earth on his feet.

"Galatea," said his voice. “Galatea, what place is this? What language do you speak."