some of the things you remembered, Rima."

"Yes, one--only one now. When I was a child at Voa mother was very
lame--you know that. Whenever we went out, away from the houses, into
the forest, walking slowly, slowly, she would sit under a tree while I
ran about playing. And every time I came back to her I would find her so
pale, so sad, crying--crying. That was when I would hide and come softly
back so that she would not hear me coming. 'Oh, mother, why are you
crying? Does your lame foot hurt you?' And one day she took me in her
arms and told me truly why she cried."

She ceased speaking, but looked at me with a strange new light coming
into her eyes.

"Why did she cry, my love?"

"Oh, Abel, can you understand--now--at last!" And putting her lips
close to my ear, she began to murmur soft, melodious sounds that told
me nothing. Then drawing back her head, she looked again at me, her eyes
glistening with tears, her lips half parted with a smile, tender and
wistful.

Ah, poor child! in spite of all that had been said, all that had
happened, she had returned to the old delusion that I must understand
her speech. I could only return her look, sorrowfully and in silence.

Her face became clouded with disappointment, then she spoke again with
something of pleading in her tone. "Look, we are not now apart, I hiding
in the wood, you seeking, but together, saying the same things. In
your language--yours and now mine. But before you came I knew nothing,
nothing, for there was only grandfather to talk to. A few words each
day, the same words. If yours is mine, mine must be yours. Oh, do you
not know that mine is better?"

"Yes, better; but alas! Rima, I can never hope to understand your sweet
speech, much less to speak it. The bird that only chirps and twitters
can never sing like the organ-bird."

Crying, she hid her face against my neck, murmuring sadly between her
sobs: "Never--never!"

How strange it seemed, in that moment of joy, such a passion of tears,
such despondent words!

For some minutes I preserved a sorrowful silence, realizing for the
first time, so far as it was possible to realize such a thing, what my
inability to understand her secret language meant to her--that finer
language in which alone her swift thoughts and vivid emotions could be
expressed. Easily and well as she seemed able to declare herself in my
tongue, I could well imagine that to her it would seem like the merest
stammering. As she had