“You didn’t tell me the truth when you told me about marriage,” I said. “Everything’s just the same as when we left. We ar’n’t any taller, and we hav’n’t got a little house, and----” She sat back on her heels and stared at me. “Oh, Lor,” she burst out, “was that why you did it?” And then she began to laugh and laugh. Her face grew red and again she fell upon me, until her corsets cut into me to such an extent that I called to her to leave off. “What I told you was gorspel true,” she said solemnly, “but you didn’t understand. That’s wot ’appens to wimmen when they goes away with men. I wasn’t speakin’ of little boys and girls. But it’ll never ’appen to you when you grow up if you tell anybody wot I said.” That morning after breakfast, instead of going into his study to work, my father led me round to the Favarts’. As we came up the path I saw Ruthita at the window watching for us. Monsieur Favart opened the door to our knock. He said something to my father in French, shook me by the hand gravely, and led the way upstairs. We entered a room at the back of the house, overlooking the garden. A lady, almost as small as Ruthita, was lying on a couch with cushions piled behind her head. She was dressed completely in white; she had dark eyes and white hair, and a face that somehow surprised you because it was so young and little. From the first I called her the Snow Lady to myself. She held out her hand to me and then, instead, put her arm about my waist, smiling up at me. “So you are Dante, the little boy who wanted to marry my little girl?” Her voice was more soft and emotional than any voice I had ever heard. It held me, and kept me from noticing anything but her. It seemed as though all the eagerness of living, which other people spend in motion, was stored up in that long white throat of hers and delicate scarlet mouth. “You can’t marry Ruth yet, you know,” she said; “you hav’n’t any money. But if you like, you may go and kiss her.” She turned me about and there was Ruthita standing behind me. I did what I was told, shyly and perfunctorily. There was no sense of pleasure in doing what you were ordered to do just to amuse grown people. The Snow Lady laughed gaily. “There, take him out into the garden, Ruthita, and teach him to do it properly.” As I left the room, I saw that my father had taken my place by the couch. Monsieur Favart was looking out of the window, his hands folded on the head of his cane and his chin resting on them. We played in the garden together, but much of the charm had gone out of our playing now that it was allowed. The game we played was gipsies in the forest. We gathered leaves and made a fire, pretending we were again in camp. I was G’liath; Ruthita was sometimes the gaudy woman and sometimes Lilith telling fortunes. But the pretense was tame after the reality. “Ruthie,” I said, “we ar’n’t married. What Hettie told me was all swank. It’s only true of men and women, and not of boys and girls.”