Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/104

 "Hullo!" she answered, "What did you call me?"

"Sitanthy," I replied. "That's your name. I gave it to you. It is the blue flower in the wheat—because you look like one of them."

"That's pretty," Sitanthy commented. "And what is your name?"

I told her.

"I know who you are," she went on. "You are the solitary child, who lives on the road to the landing, and who never plays"

"I do play!" I cried.

"How can you? You are always sitting still."

"I play most when I am most still."

"Yours must be a funny game," she observed "for when I sit still I go to sleep."

Across the bushes we leaned and kissed each other. With her fingers Sitanthy took hold of my cheeks and told me that she loved me.

"I have loved you ever since we came to live here," I said, "because you are so pretty."

"Are you pretty?" she inquired politely. "You have the largest eyes of anyone in the world."

"They are not really so large," I corrected her. "They only look so, because my face is little. I know it for a fact, because one day I measured with a thread those of my father, and they were every bit as large as mine."