It is an easy thing for them to move: they are already at home again. But although they have so few cares, we do not wish ourselves in their place, for we love the home of our childhood, "be it ever so humble," better than roaming like an exile.
But all the time I haven't told you how Gemila looks, nor what clothes she wears. Her face is dark; she has a little straight nose, full lips, and dark, earnest eyes; her dark hair will be braided when it is long enough. On her arms and her ankles are gilded bracelets and anklets, and she wears a brown cotton dress loosely hanging halfway to the bare, slender ankles. On her head the white fringed handkerchief, of which I told you, hangs like a little veil. Her face is pleasant, and when she smiles her white teeth shine between her parted lips.
She is the child of the desert, and she loves her desert home.
I think she would hardly be happy to live in a house, eat from a table, and sleep in a little bed like yours. She would grow restless and weary if she should live so long and so quietly in one place.
THE LITTLE MOUNTAIN MAIDEN.
[Illustration]
I want you to look at the picture on this page. It is a little deer: its name is the chamois. Do you see what delicate horns it has, and what slender legs, and how it seems to stand on that bit of rock and lift its head to watch for the hunters.
Last summer I saw a little chamois like that, and just as small: it was not alive, but cut or carved of wood,—such a graceful pretty little plaything as one does not meet every day.
Would you like to know who made it, and where it came from?
It was made in the mountain country, by the brother of my good
Jeannette, the little Swiss maiden.