Four years had since passed; they had overcome the desire to enter the
premises or to look over the wall, but they told wondrous tales of
the garden and of a beautiful fairy who dwelt in it, and whose soft,
melodious voice was sometimes heard in the stillness of the night
singing sweet, transporting songs. No one had seen her, this fairy, but
she was certainly beautiful, and of course young; there were also some
bold individuals who asserted that when the moon shone brightly and
goldenly, the young fairy was then to be seen in the tops of the
trees or upon the edge of the wall. Light as an elf, transparent as a
moonbeam, she there swung to and fro, executing the singular dances
and singing songs that brought tears to the eyes and compassion to the
hearts of those who heard them. On hearing these tales, the Romans would
make the sign of the cross, and pass more quickly by the walls of this
garden, which thenceforth they called "_The Charmed Garden_." It was
indeed a charmed garden! It was an island of happiness, behind these
walls, concealed from the knavery of the world. Like an eternal smile of
the Divinity rested the heavens over this ever-blooming, ever-fragrant
garden, in whose myrtle-bushes the nightingales sang, and in whose
silver-clear basins the goldfishes splashed.
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