into agitation the wave of that bosom which there was nobody to see, as if it was ashamed of her and angry with itself. [Footnote 27: Sc. the Himalaya.] [Footnote 28: The old epics are full of stories of these gatherings, held to enable the daughters of Kings to choose their own husbands. The story of the marriage in Herodotus, about which Hippocleides did not care, is one of the few parallels in the west.] And yet, with the exception of her father, she had never seen any man but one, who entered into her forest life merely like one of its trees, for she had been accustomed to see him, every now and then, ever since she was a child. And this was a young woodman, who lived a long way off in the wood. And he used to go hunting with her father, who had found him in the forest: and he came every now and then to see them, since her father was pleased with him, for his good nature and simplicity, resembling as it did the clearness of a stream. And he was as tall as a _shala_ tree, and very strong, and very brown and hairy, and though his name was Babhru,[29] yet her father always called him Bruin,[30] and Aranyani knew him first only by the nickname: for when she was a child, he used to play with her, as often as he came. And so as she grew up, she looked upon him always with the eyes of a child, never even dreaming that her own alteration might produce any alteration in himself: as it did. For little by little, as her beauty grew, so did his affection; till at last it turned into a passionate devotion, that remained notwithstanding absolutely pure, and free from any taint of evil, like the soil in which it grew. And finally, he could not keep away from her. And he came oftener and oftener to see them, till her father was on the very point of forbidding him to come. And then, suddenly, Babhru asked him, to give Aranyani to him as a wife. [Footnote 29: Tawny: reddish brown. Pronounce Bub-bhroo.] [Footnote 30: _Achcha_, a corruption of _Riksha_, just as we say "Bruin" instead of "Bear."]