She was in that arid household as the prophet in the land where there was no dew nor rain for these long years.

But as he had the brook Cherith, and the bread and flesh in the morning and the bread and flesh in the evening which the ravens brought him, so she had the river and her secret store of books.
The river was light and life and music and companionship to her.

She learned to row herself about upon it, to swim boldly in it, for it had sheltered nooks but a little way above The Poplars.

But there was more than that in it,--it was infinitely sympathetic.

A river is strangely like a human soul.