The Lady rose - a young maiden regaled in gowns that now lay aside upon the bank of  dense laurel.  She stood in silence.  Her head bare and hair unfurled, with dark, bright eyes she looked deeply into an azure sky. Translucent silk falling, cascading around her shoulders, down to her knees, swayed softly against the water's surface.  She stepped further, carefully into the fresh natural pool, until her waist grew dim.  The pale gown rippled gently, swirling downward with the tension of a sequenced bodice, jewels glittering in the morning light.  She stirred slightly and then dipped beneath the dark water's surface; upon her rising, the water broke apart, rushing-baptizing, and returning into the emerald calm.  She stood calmly, watching once more.  Turning a hidden face toward the earthen jar upon the bank, she waded back, and kneeling, she lifted and dipped it into the pool, raised it over her head and let fall the spring-tide stream upon her lightly clothed skin. Silence enshrouded her bathing ritual and hung upon the morning air like honeysuckle.  She preferred the stillness of early morning, the mists rising from the hidden pools of the forest.  The seclusion of the hemlocks and the wildness of delicate blossoms and tender ferns drew her there repeatedly.