CHAPTER I. A FIRST MEETING.

CHAPTER I.

A FIRST MEETING.

Perhaps some reader may know the Glen of the Dargle. No boys or girls may know it, but perchance their grandsires may tell them of a mountain stream which threads its way through rugged hills till it falls over a precipice and winds onward through a glen of unspeakable loveliness. They may remember the ravine shut in on either side by hills, covered with gigantic trees, some of which meet across it, forming a natural bridge.

Well, it was upon that bridge that I saw—at first with deep amazement, then with fear and trembling—the slender, graceful figure, the almost eerie loveliness of Wayward Winifred. How she had reached her dangerous position was clear enough; for her feet were like the mountain goat, and her figure wonderfully lithe and active. I stood and gazed at her, afraid to speak lest she should fall from the dizzy height. She looked back at me with clear brown eyes, and spoke in a voice that held just a hint of the Dublin accent to give it sweetness.

"Are you the lady from America?"

I answered that I was, and a long pause ensued. The child was evidently studying me, and I in my turn put a question:

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"How on earth, child, did you get up there? And don't you know that any moment you might come tumbling down into the water below?"

"The water wouldn't harm me if I did," Winifred replied, looking down into the clear depths; "and it knows me well. I come here every day, unless there be a storm."

"Is your mother aware of so dangerous a proceeding?" I asked with some sternness.

A strange look passed over the girl's face, and she answered with a little laugh, half merry, half wistful:

"Ah! then, don't you know? I'm the orphan from the castle."

"From the castle?" I repeated. I began to think that this creature, after all, was a spirit, such as I had been told lived in the glens and streams of fairy-haunted Ireland.

"Yes," said she, "I am from the castle."

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