your people, she will sink down and die in a day."

Then El Sol was very sad. But he said, "May I not see you again?"

"Yes," she answered, "I will meet you here in the morning, for it is
pleasant to look on your beauty," and her voice tinkled sweetly.

So she met him in the morning, and again on the third morning. He loved
her madly now, and though she held back, he seized her in his arms and
kissed her tenderly.

Then her arms fell weakly to her sides, and her eyes half closed as she
said: "I know now that the old writing spake truth. I love you, I love
you, my love; but you have killed me."

And she sank down, a limp white form, on the leafy ground.

El Sol was wild with grief. He tried to revive her, to bring her back.

She only whispered, "Good-bye, my love. I am going fast. You will see me
no more, but come to this place a year from now. It may be Maka Ina will
be kind, and will send you a little one that is yours and mine."

Her white body melted away, as he bent over it and wept.

He came back every morning, but saw Snowroba no more. One year from that
day, as he lingered sadly over the sacred spot, he saw a new and
wonderful flower come forth. Its bloom was of the tenderest violet blue,
and it was full of expression. As he gazed, he saw those eyes again; the
scalding tears dropped from his eyes, and burned its leaves into a
blotched and brownish colour. He remembered, and understood her promise
now. He knew that this was their blue-eyed little one.

In the early springtime we can see it. Three sunny days on the edge of
the snowdrift will bring it forth. The hunterfolk who find it, say that
it is just one of the spring flowers, out earlier than any other, and is
called Liverleaf, but we Woodcrafters know better. We know it is
Hepatica, the child of El Sol and Snowroba.

TALE 2

The Story of the White Dawnsinger

or

How the Bloodroot Came

Have you noticed that there are no snow-white birds in our woods during
summer? Mother Carey long ago made it a rule that all snow-white
landbirds should go north, when the snow was gone in the springtime. And
they were quite obedient; they flew, keeping just on the south edge of
the melting snow.

But it so happened that one of the sweetest singers of all--the
snow-white Dawnsinger with the golden bill and the ruby legs--was flying
northward with his bride, when she sprained her wing so she could not
fly at all.

There was no other help for it; they mu