and be envious!"

Then Katipah would go softly away, and send up her kite by the seashore
till she heard a far-off, sweet, babe-like cry as the wind blew through
the strings high in air.

"Shall I ever be loved by anybody?" thought she, as she jerked at the
cord; and away the kite flew higher than ever, and the sound of its call
grew fainter.

One morning, in the beginning of the year, Katipah went up on to the
hill under plum-boughs white with bloom, meaning to gather field-sorrel
for her midday meal; and as she stooped with all her hair blowing over
her face, and her skirts knotting and billowing round her pretty brown
ankles, she felt as if some one had kissed her from behind.

"That cannot be," thought Katipah, with her fingers fast upon a stalk
of field-sorrel; "it is too soon for anything so good to happen." So she
picked the sorrel quietly, and put it into her basket. But now, not to
be mistaken, arms came round her, and she was kissed.

She stood up and put her hands into her breast, quite afraid lest her
little heart, which had grown so light, should be caught by a puff of
wind and blown right away out of her bosom, and over the hill and into
the sea, and be drowned.

And now her eyes would not let her doubt; there by her side stood a
handsome youth, with quick-fluttering, posy-embroidered raiment. His
long dark hair was full of white plum-blossoms, as though he had just
pushed his head through the branches above. His hands also were loaded
with the same, and they kept sifting out of his long sleeves whenever he
moved his arms. Under the hem of his robe Katipah could see that he had
heron's wings bound about his ankles.

"He must be very good," thought Katipah, "to be so beautiful! and indeed
he must be very good to kiss poor me!"

"Katipah," said the wonderful youth, "though you do not know me, I
know you. It is I who so often helped you to fly your green kite by the
shore. I have been up there, and have looked into its blue eyes, and
kissed its little red mouth which held the peach-blossom. It was I who
made songs in its strings for your heart to hear. I am the West Wind,
Katipah--the wind that brings fine weather. 'Gamma-gata' you must call
me, for it is I who bring back the wings that fly till the winter is
over. And now I have come down to earth, to fetch you away and make you
my wife. Will you come, Katipah?"

"I will come, Gamma-gata!" said Katipah, and she crouched and kissed the
heron-wings