"No, no—silly boy."
"What then?"
"Oh, like that."
"Like that? But what is that?"
"Like that," Nela insisted again.
"I see, it is a thing that cannot be explained in words. Do you know I used to have a notion of day and of night. It was daytime when people talked, it was night when people were silent and the cocks crowed. Now I estimate it differently; it is day when you and I are together, and it is night when we are apart."
"Ah, Holy Mother!" exclaimed the girl, shaking back the elf-locks that hung over her forehead.—"To me, who can see, it is exactly the same."
"I mean to ask my father to let you come and live in our house, so that I may always have you with me."
"Good, good!" cried Marianela clapping her hands once more. And as she spoke, she skipped on a little way in front and picking up her skirts with a great deal of grace began to dance.
"What are you about?" asked the blind boy.