I looked out upon it drearily.

Its round brown ironstones lay piled irregularly together, almost as if placed there in some earlier age by the mighty hands of prehistoric giants.

My gaze on it was blank.
I was thinking, not of it, but of Hilda, Hilda.
I called the name aloud: "Hilda! Hilda! Hilda!" As I called, to my immense surprise, one of the smooth round boulders on the hillside seemed slowly to uncurl, and to peer about it cautiously.
Then it raised itself in the slant sunlight, put a hand to its eyes, and gazed out upon me with a human face for a moment.

After that it descended, step by step, among the other stones, with a white object in its arms.

As the boulder uncurled and came to life, I was aware, by degrees...