kindliness in her eyes--the almost submissive
gentleness that yet was a defense stronger than steel. I never knew--how
should I?--whether she was sitting by my side or heavens away from me in
her own strange world. But always she was a sweetness that I could not
reach, a cup of nectar that I might not drink, unalterably her own and
never mine, and yet--my friend.

She showed me the wild track up into the mountains where the Pilgrims go
to pay their devotions at the Great God's shrine in the awful heights,
regretting that we were too early for that most wonderful sight. Above
where we were sitting the river fell in a tormented white cascade,
crashing and feathering into spray-dust of diamonds. An eagle was
flying above it with a mighty spread of wings that seemed almost
double-jointed in the middle--they curved and flapped so wide and free.
The fierce head was outstretched with the rake of a plundering galley as
he swept down the wind, seeking his meat from God, and passed majestic
from our sight. The valley beneath us was littered with enormous
boulders spilt from the ancient hollows of the hills. It must have
been a great sight when the giants set them trundling down in work
or play!--I said this to Vanna, who was looking down upon it with
meditative eyes. She roused herself.

"Yes, this really is Giant-Land up here--everything is so huge. And when
they quarrel up in the heights--in Jotunheim--and the black storms
come down the valleys it is like colossal laughter or clumsy boisterous
anger. And the Frost giants are still at work up there with their great
axes of frost and rain. They fling down the side of a mountain or make
fresh ways for the rivers. About sixty years ago--far above here--they
tore down a mountain side and damned up the mighty Indus, so that for
months he was a lake, shut back in the hills. But the river giants are
no less strong up here in the heights of the world, and lie lay brooding
and hiding his time. And then one awful day he tore the barrier down and
roared down the valley carrying death and ruin with him, and swept away
a whole Sikh army among other unconsidered trifles. That must have been
a soul-shaking sight."

She spoke on, and as she spoke I saw. What are her words as I record
them? Stray dead leaves pressed in a book--the life and grace dead. Yet
I record, for she taught me what I believe the world should learn, that
the Buddhist philosophers are right when they teach that all forms