Snow-Blind

What did he say to you?"

laughed

ed he was going on forever. He said: 'We will, we will.' That

answered. "He might

d have boxed his ears! No, no, Peter

hillock topped with three big pines. The dusk was thick about them; stars pricked the soft sky. Sylvie was wrapped in Hugh's coat, and they were linked by their hands hanging at

aid of you?" He smiled down at the small

be jealous of a boy! Besides, I don't kiss him any more. I never have kissed h

's voice had an odd anxie

of his universe, and I suppose he is jealous of your love for me. Since then he's avoided me

don't know,"

, 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,

he low speech with its tremor

e river makes!"

tling. Sounds tell me so much now. They fill my whole life. It is very queer. Why, a v

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

built up a fire. Sylvie groped her way to the throne from which the other woman s

ou know how I feel about bears. I honestly think that being so afraid of seeing them is what made me blind!" She gave her small, shy laugh. "I thought I saw them everywhere I looked that day and night. It seems so long a

ey all seemed painted like ornamental figures, Hugh lounging along the rug to make a striking central figure. Bella

d then, and as though he couldn't help it, that the blue, smouldering Northern eyes were turned to Sylvie on her throne. Then they would brighten painfully, and his lips would tighten so that the dimple, meant for laughter, cut itself like a touch of pain into his cheek. The firelight height

of his spirit. Here in this lonely square of light and warmth, surrounded by a world of savage, lawless win

ound as a barrel, was trying to scramble over the flood on a very shaky log. The mother was on the other side, but I didn't know that then. Well, there's nothing in God's world, Sylvie, so beguiling as a baby bear. This little fellow was scared by what he was doing, but he was bound he'd get across the river. He'd make a few steps;

drowned?" wa

sun it lives by, without seeing. It was strange to watch the adoration, the worship on that small face, and at the same time to behold the grotesqueness toward which it was d

n after him-that is, I meant to hold on to a branch and stand out in the water and catch him as he went by. But the nymph I told you about had her own plans. S

icked up limp and trembling Master Bear and went back for my hides. And while I was collecting them, I heard a sort of grumpy, grumbling sound, and I looked up-and, by Jove,

was slightly contorted as though sighting along a gun-barrel, his arm raised, the ungainliness of his deformity strongly accentuated. He was not looking at Sylvie; true to his nature and his habit, he had forgotten every one but that Hugh of adv

icturesquely told. When it was over, and the mother bear, after a worthy struggle, defeated, Hugh looked about for his applause. It came, grudgingly from Bella, eagerly f

ted herself to be carried to bed. She declared she felt quite well again a

nd kissed her forehead and her hand, but it

living-room with a p