Adalo's glance followed the little creature's bound, which really
resembled flying.
But meanwhile, from amid the dense foliage in the centre of the tree a
figure clad in the dress of a girl slid nimbly down the trunk, and as
soon as she reached the ground, smoothed her garments carefully from
her knees to her ankles. With her dainty, sparkling beauty, her almost
childlike delicacy of form, this apparition looked less like a mortal
maiden than a spirit of light.
She wore no cloak. Her white linen robe, with its cherry-red border and
girdle of the same hue a hand's breadth wide, left her neck and arms
bare; her complexion, wherever any portion of her almost too slenderly
moulded figure was visible, gleamed with the dazzling whiteness of
ivory; the unusually heavy dark-red eyebrows, which nearly met in the
centre but were beautifully arched, frowned threateningly, and her
clear blue eyes were now flashing with wrath. The vision attracted
rather by the vivacious charm of expression and the perfect symmetry of
her dainty figure than by regular beauty. For it must be confessed,
though the charming inquisitive little nose did not actually turn
up--by no means--it was really a little too short. And, as it sloped
sharply away at the end, the space between it and the upper lip became
too long, thereby giving the oval face when in repose an expression
half of alert surprise, half of mischievous wilfulness.
Everything about this dainty dragon-fly was so delicate that the young
girl might easily have been taken for a child, had not her rounded bust
revealed her womanhood. Wonderfully charming was the little mouth,
whose lips were so full that they seemed to pout mirthfully, while
their hue rivalled the red border of her robe. A dimple in the chin and
a slight tendency to a double chin lent the face that innocent
sweetness without which woman's beauty fails to attract.
The most remarkable thing about this elfin vision was her hair--hair
whose bright red hue was the very tint of flame--which rippled around
her brow and temples in a thousand wilful little ringlets as if each
individual one curled separately. They seemed to frame the face
protectingly, as thorns cluster about a rosebud. The rest of her locks,
after the Suabian fashion, were combed upward toward the crown, knotted
there, and then flowed in magnificent tawny waves, somewhat darker in
tint, over her dazzlingly white neck far below her waist.
The expression of saucy defiance, inquisitive surprise, nay even
superiority, enhanced by this arrangement of the hair, was still
further heightened by the little creature's habit of raising her heavy
eyebrows as if in mingled astonishment and reproof. In the charm of the
contradiction lay a temptation to smile which this fragile elf, with
her pert little nose and sparkling blue eyes, seamed to discover--and
if necessary instantly resent.
An extremely strong will, a hot, ungovernable temper, and the sweetness
of a half unfolded bud, were contrasts which provoked a smile--nay,
almost irresistibly awakened a desire to try what the impetuous little
thing would do if her swift wrath were aroused. But when she raised her
eyes with a more gentle expression, they were so bewitchingly
beautiful, so pure, so tender, so soulful, that enthusiastic admiration
made the spectator forget the inclination to tease her.
True, at this moment the elf looked by no means angelic, but thoroughly
evil, as, darting only one swift glance of furious rage at the tall
young noble, she seized the old woman violently by the shoulder and in
a low voice stifled by suppressed fury--cried: "Grandmother!--Away!--To
the marshes! Zercho the bondman must guide us. Away!"
"Gently, child, gently! Did not you hear? It will be safer on the
mountain."
"Safer perhaps for us; but not for those whom we--no, whom _I_ should
then be near. Go," she cried furiously to the youth, "save yourself, I
advise you, from the red-hair. 'False and spitting her ire like the fox
and the fire.' Was that the way it ran, you witty fellow? As soon as
the daughter of our neighbor Ero, giggling with spiteful mirth, told me
your last jibe against me, I climbed the hay-ladder to the ridge-pole
of our house and painted our white star up there red: painted it very
thick and bright, so that you could see it from the edge of the forest
and keep far away from the evil color. Very far--do you hear?"