Do you think I can tell you what she said when I asked her why she cried?
Oh no! Only this, she and another were like one, always, apart from the others.

Then something came--something came! O Abel, was that the something you told me about on the mountain?
And the other was lost for ever, and she was alone in the forests and mountains of the world.

Oh, why do we cry for what is lost?
Why do we not quickly forget it and feel glad again?
Now only do I know what you felt, O sweet mother, when you sat still and cried, while I ran about and played and laughed! O poor mother! Oh, what pain!" And hiding her face against my neck, she sobbed once more.
To my eyes also love and sympathy brought the tears; but in a little while the fond, comforting words I spoke and my caresses recalled her from that sad past to the present; then, lying back as at first, her head resting on my folded cloak, her body partly supported by my encircling arm and partly by the rock we were leaning against, her half-closed eyes turned to mine expressed a tender assured happiness--the chastened gladness of sunshine after rain; a soft delicious languor that was partly passionate with the passion etherealized.
"Tell me, Rima," I said, bending down to her, "in all those troubled days with me in the woods had you no happy moments?
Did not something in your heart tell you that it was sweet to love, even before you knew what love meant ?" "Yes; and once--O Abel, do you remember that night, after returning from Ytaioa, when you sat so late talking by the fire--I in the shadow, never stirring, listening, listening; you by the fire with the light on your face, saying so many strange things?
I was happy then--oh, how happy! It was black night and raining, and I a plant growing in the dark, feeling the sweet raindrops falling, falling on my leaves.

Oh, it will be morning by and by and the sun will shine on my wet leaves; and that made me glad till I trembled with happiness.

Then suddenly the lightning would come, so bright, and I would tremble with fear, and wish that it would be dark again.