I'll kiss him. Don't grip my hand that way; it hurts. You
couldn't be jealous of a boy! Besides, I _don't_ kiss him any more. I
never have kissed him but that once--no, twice, when I told him that I
was going to be his sister."

"You told him that?" Hugh's voice had an odd anxiety. "How did he take
it?"

"I don't think he was very enthusiastic. He loves you so much, Hugh; you
are the very heart of his universe, and I suppose he is jealous of your
love for me. Since then he's avoided me and is as dumb as a fish when I
talk to him. I think his body has outgrown his mind, Hugh."

"Perhaps. I don't know," he answered.

"And Bella is so silent, too. Hugh, it must have been a lonely life for
you before I came. Those two people, though they love you so much, are
not companionable. I think, Hugh, that they aren't able to understand
you. You are so brilliant, and they are so dull; you are so articulate,
and they are so dumb; you are so warm, so quick to see, to feel, to
sympathize, while they are so slow and so cold. Dear Hugh, I'm glad I
came. I am stupid myself, but I have enough intelligence to understand
you--a little, haven't I, dear?"

"So much more than enough!" The low speech with its tremor of humility
was almost lost.

"What a noise the river makes!" he said presently.

"Yes. And the pines. The whole air is full of rushing and sighing and
clapping and rattling. Sounds tell me so much now. They fill my whole
life. It is very queer. Why, a voice means more to me now, I think, than
a face ever did.... Is it a deep river, Hugh?"

"Now it is--deep and dangerous. But it goes down very quickly when the
snow at its source has melted. In summer it is a friendly little brook,
and in the fall a mere trickle that hardly wets your shoe. I have a boat
here tied to the root of one of these trees, a boat I made myself, to
pole across when the stream is too deep for wading. I'll take you out in
it when the flood's down; it wouldn't last fifteen minutes now. In
the spring, Sylvie, a nymph comes down from the mountain, a wild white
nymph. She has ice-green hair and frost-white arms; you can see her
lashing the water, and if you listen, you can hear her sing and cry.
Let's go in, dear; you're tired and cold--I can feel you shivering.
We'll start a big fire, and I'll tell you how that nymph caught me
once and nearly strangled me with her cold, wet arms. I was trying to
save--you'll laugh when I tell you about it--a baby bear."