202 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
denly ; there is little frost in the ground, and 
the liberated waters, free without the expected 
freshef, are filtered into the earth, or climb on 
ladders of sunbeams to the sky. The beautiful 
crystals all melt away, and the places where 
they lay are silently made ready to be sub- 
merged in new drifts of summer verdure. 
These also will be transmuted in their turn, and 
so the eternal cycle of the season glides along. 
Near my house there is a garden, beneath 
whose stately sycamores a fountain plays. 
Three sculptured girls lift forever upward a chal- 
ice which distils unceasingly a fine and plashing 
rain ; in summer the spray holds the maidens in 
a glittering veil, but winter takes the radiant 
drops and slowly builds them up into a shroud 
of ice which creeps gradually about the three 
slight figures : the feet vanish, the waist is encir- 
cled, the head is covered, the piteous uplifted 
arms disappear, as if each were a Vestal Virgin 
entombed alive for her transgression. They 
vanishing entirely, the fountain yet plays on 
unseen ; all winter the pile of ice grows larger, 
glittering organ-pipes of congelation add them- 
selves outside, and by February a great glacier 
is formed, at whose buried centre stand immov- 
able the patient girls. Spring comes at last, 
the fated prince, to free with glittering spear 
these enchanted beauties; the waning glacier, 
