“It so happened that it was almost the time when the great green river Nile flows out over its banks and makes all wet with water for miles around. At such a time it was the custom of Spoon-bills and cranes and adjutant-birds and others of their ilk, and animals of divers kinds, to leave their homes and move away out of reach of the green and purple flood. But no one had thought of moving yet, for it was too early in the season. Maren Spoon-bill and Oliver W. Spoon-bill had not even begun to gather up their household goods, nor had they, as their wont was, removed the black tablet from the head of Roland Spoon-bill’s grave, which was on the very edge of the river. “The river-god is a person of whims like the rest of us. And so that year, on the day that Delilah and Auden Spoon-bill went down the river to eat lotus flowers, he gave vent to one of them. He thought to send a premonition of the yearly flood in the shape of one beautiful green and purple and white wave, one which would not go so very far but which should be damaging in its effects. “‘Delilah,’ said Auden Spoon-bill, ‘since we are here eating lotus flowers, life is very fine, isn’t it?’ “‘Oh, very fine--yes, very fine,’ said Delilah, and was thrilled. “‘You are a so dear friend,’ said Auden Spoon-bill. “‘Yes,’ said Delilah, and was not thrilled. “‘Life,’ said Auden Spoon-bill, ‘is pretty fine, no matter how it is arranged.’ “‘But life is a very strange thing,’ said Delilah. ‘I can’t begin to tell you how strange I have found it. For one thing, I may have what is not my heart’s desire, and what is my heart’s desire I may not have.’ “‘It is strange,’ admitted Auden Spoon-bill. ‘But why have any heart’s desires aside from what is already yours in this fine, fair world?’ “‘One can not rule one’s heart,’ cried Delilah. ‘One’s heart goes on before one’s mind can stop to think. One’s heart rushes in before everything. One’s heart plays with brilliant-colored things when all else is dead-color. One’s heart loves----’ “But Delilah never finished. Before their eyes rose up a magnificent wall--a wall of water that was fire and cloud and silver, and in it were ineffable rainbows of the purple that gathers up the soul in its brilliance and shows it wondrous possibilities; and in it were lines of the pale lavender that caresses the senses--and one breathes from it almost a fragrance of heliotrope; and in it were broad sheets of deep black and dazzling white that were of the seeming of life and death; and in it, last of all, was a world of infinite green: it had come from a place of great things; it had come to a place where all went down before it, where lives exulted but shrank from it because of its green. “An exquisite whim, was that of the river-god.