“Now it is--deep and dangerous. But it goes down very quickly when the snow at its source has melted. In summer it is a friendly little brook, and in the fall a mere trickle that hardly wets your shoe. I have a boat here tied to the root of one of these trees, a boat I made myself, to pole across 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 listen, you can hear her sing and cry. Let’s go in, dear; you’re tired and cold--I can feel you shivering. We’ll start a big fire, and I’ll tell you how that nymph caught me once and nearly strangled me with her cold, wet arms. I was trying to save--you’ll laugh when I tell you about it--a baby bear.” Pete and Bella made room for them silently about the hearth where Pete had already built up a fire. Sylvie groped her way to the throne from which the other woman slipped half furtively and so noiselessly that Sylvie never guessed her usurpation. “Hugh is going to tell us a story,” she said, and rested her head back so that her small chin pointed out and her slim neck was drawn up--“a wonderful story about the river and a bear. I hope it’s a baby bear, Hugh, for you 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 ago now, and yet it is not so many weeks. I can still hear Hugh’s voice calling out to me across the snow. And now,” she said, “the snow’s all gone and none of you are strangers any more, and--Go on with your story, Hugh.” Pete added a log to the fire so that the flames stretched up bravely and made a great fan of light against which they all seemed painted like ornamental figures, Hugh lounging along the rug to make a striking central figure. Bella was drawn up rigidly on a stiff, hard chair; she hemmed a long, coarse towel with her blunt, work-roughened fingers.