the strings of her guitar, and sang the sweetest of her native songs. It was as though not a leaf stirred—as if the flowers raised their dewy heads to listen to the enchanting tones of her melodious voice. I was thrilled with transport; I moved nearer to her, and when quite close, she still seemed to be too far from me.
“This morning,” said she, “long before you were up, I was abroad. I taught all the rocks round about your name, that they may be able to repeat it to me when you are gone; then I shall have something to talk to me about you when I am alone. I will tell you now why I wept, and why I was so low-spirited at the beginning of supper. When you are gone—but perhaps it is wrong for me to tell you, and yet there is no harm in it, and it seems to me as if you ought to know all I think and feel—when you are gone, I shall have nothing worth living for. I dare not tell father so; he will say, ‘Have you not your cattle and your aulis, your kids and your doves, your Alps and your flowers?’—Very true; but I have not any one to call me his little Mimili, to chat and toy with me, and to tell me, a hundred times a day, that he is fond of me.—You will be far—far away, and not a creature in the whole world will think of poor little Mimili in her solitary mountains. My spirit will fly over them after you, and they will bury me under the cold rocks. It was this
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