I begin to doubt whether he is a veritable Faun." "Then," said Hilda, with perfect simplicity, "you have thought him--and do think him--one of that strange, wild, happy race of creatures, that used to laugh and sport in the woods, in the old, old times?
So do I, indeed! But I never quite believed, till now, that fauns existed anywhere but in poetry." The sculptor at first merely smiled.

Then, as the idea took further possession of his mind, he laughed outright, and wished from the bottom of his heart (being in love with Hilda, though he had never told her so) that he could have rewarded or punished her for its pretty absurdity with a kiss.
"O Hilda, what a treasure of sweet faith and pure imagination you hide under that little straw hat!" cried he, at length.

"A Faun! a Faun! Great Pan is not dead, then, after all! The whole tribe of mythical creatures yet live in the moonlit seclusion of a young girl's fancy, and find it a lovelier abode and play-place, I doubt not, than their Arcadian haunts of yore.

What bliss, if a man of marble, like myself, could stray thither, too!" "Why do you laugh so ?" asked Hilda, reddening; for she was a little disturbed at Kenyon's ridicule, however kindly expressed.

"What can I have said, that you think so very foolish ?" "Well, not foolish, then," rejoined the sculptor, "but wiser, it may be, than I can fathom.