Page:Green Mansions 1904.djvu/117

Rh "Come here, Rima," I said, "and stay with me for a little while—I cannot follow you now."

She took one or two hesitating steps, then stood still again; and at length, slowly and reluctantly, advanced to within a yard of me. Then I rose from my seat on the root, so as to catch her face better, and placed my hand against the rough bark of the tree.

"Rima," I said, speaking in a low, caressing tone, "will you stay with me here a little while and talk to me, not in your language, but in mine, so that I may understand? Will you listen when I speak to you, and answer me?"

Her lips moved, but made no sound. She seemed strangely disquieted, and shook back her loose hair, and with her small toes moved the sparkling sand at her feet, and once or twice her eyes glanced shyly at my face.

"Rima, you have not answered me," I persisted. "Will you not say 'yes'?"

"Yes."

"Where does your grandfather spend his day when he goes out with his dogs?"

She shook her head slightly, but would not speak. "Have you no mother, Rima? Do you remember your mother?"

"My mother! My mother!" she exclaimed in a low voice, but with a sudden, wonderful animation. Bending a little nearer she continued: "Oh, she is dead! Her body is in the earth and turned to dust. Like that," and she moved the loose sand with her foot." Her soul is up there, where the stars and the angels are, grandfather