I

In a green land beside the misty sea lived a poor little girl who had no shoes.

One morning in spring as she walked in a foggy glen through which a sparkling brook ran joyously from the meadow to the sea, she heard a sudden voice:

“Dance!”

The mists dispersed and the sunrise glittered through the dark leaves and branches of an oak tree, adorning it with a thousand tiny red-gold stars.

“Dance!” she thought. “And what do I know of dancing?”

“Dance with me!” the Voice said again. And it was as if strong and sweet music rose up from within her, and she was carried away, caught up into something larger and more powerful than herself.

From that moment, then, she was a dancer. Her feet moved quickly and lightly over the jeweled grass, her movements reflected in each crystal dewdrop.

She danced with the last wisps of mist as they floated on the air and vanished. She danced with the fragrance of the flowers carried along on the morning breezes. She danced to the music of the brook and the silent song of the trees.

“To dance with the mist and with the flowers, with the brook and with the trees,” said the Voice, “is to dance with me. And yet I am not in the mist, nor am I in the flowers, nor in the brook, nor yet in the trees.”

“Who are you then?” she asked breathlessly.

But the only answer that came was, “Come, dance with me!”

* * * * * * *