She smiled. All his heart was glad because of that. The light in her eyes was like the fire of the moon, bright and wonderful. The delicate body of her was pale green, and luminous as a leaf, with soft earth-brown hair falling down her shoulders and over the swelling breast; even as the small green mounds over the dead the two breasts were. She was clad only in her own loveliness, though the moonshine was about her as a garment. "Like a green leaf, like a green leaf," Cathal muttered over and over below his breath. "Are you a dream?" he asked simply, having no words for his wonder. "No, Cathal, I am no dream. I am a woman." "A woman? But ... but ... you have no body as other women have: and I see the moonbeam that is on your breast shining upon the moss behind you!" "Is it thinking you are, poor Cathal, that there are no women and no men in the world except those who are in thick flesh, and move about in the suntide." Cathal stared wonderingly. "I am of the green people, Cathal. We are of the woods. I am a woman of the woods." "Hast thou a name, fair woman?" "I am called Deòin."[6] [6] _Deo-uaine._ "That is well. Truly 'Green Life' is a good name for thee. Are there others of thy kin in this place?" "Look!" and at that she stooped, lifted the dew of a white flower in the moonshine, and put it upon his eyes. Cathal looked about him. Everywhere he saw tall fair pale-green lives moving to and fro: some passing out of trees, swift and silent as rain out of a cloud; some passing into trees, silent and swift as shadows. All were fair to look upon: tall, lithe, graceful, moving this way and that in the moonshine, pale green as the leaves of the lime, soft shining, with radiant eyes, and delicate earth-brown hair. "Who are these, Deòin?" Cathal asked in a low whisper of awe. "They are my people: the folk of the woods: the green people." "But they come out of trees: they come and they go like bees in and out of a hive." "Trees? That is your name for us of the woods. _We_ are the trees." "_You_ the trees, Deòin! How can that be?" "There is life in your body. Where does it go when the body sleeps, or when the sap rises no more to heart or brain, and there is chill in the blood, and it is like frozen water? Is there a life in your body?" "Ay, so. I know it." "The flesh is _your_ body: the tree is _my_ body." "Then you are the green life of a tree?" "I am the green life of a tree." "And these?" "They are as I am." "I see those that are men and those that are women, and their offspring too I see." "They are as I am." "And some are crowned with pale flowers." "They love." "And hast thou no crown, Deòin, who art so fair?" "Neither hast thou, Cathal, though thy face is fair. Thy body I cannot see, because thou hast a husk about thee." With a low laugh Cathal removed his raiment from him. The whiteness of his body was like a flower there in the moonshine.