"Why do you want to bring him back?" asked the Oread. "He is much better where he is. Will he thank you for bringing him back? Not a bit. You will have the labor and the danger, and he will take it all for granted. And then he will become a man, and what use is that? He may be a financier, and cheat somebody; or a politician, and slander somebody; or a learned man, and hinder wisdom. He is much better in Fairyland. Why are you going?"
"I can't help it," said Fiona. "You can't leave people in the lurch, you know."
"Of course you can," said the Oread. "Be sensible and go home; eat, drink, and be merry."
"O, don't you understand?" said Fiona. "Don't you see that there are some things you can't do, whatever anybody says? It's not the reason of the thing; it's only just because I am I, and he is lost. You are so beautiful; haven't you any heart?"
"Neither heart nor soul," said the Oread. "So I ought to be perfectly happy. You have a heart and a soul, and you are not. Which of us is the better off?"
"I wouldn't change, anyhow," said Fiona.
The Oread laughed.
"Of course you wouldn't. It is I who would change if I could. But as I have no soul, and cannot get one, and do not know what it would mean to get one, it is no use worrying; it is best to be happy as I am. In any case, I would not care to be like men and women. I would not mind having a child's heart, like you. I had a heart once, but it is so long ago that I have almost forgotten what it was like. How old do you think I am?"
"You look about seventeen," said Fiona.
"I am exactly as old as Heleval," said the girl. "And that is more hundreds of thousands of years than you or I could ever count. I am older than any of the fishes or birds or beasts; far older than men or fairies. Look at that," and the Oread swept her arm over the glorious prospect around her; the two great wings of the Isle of Mist stretched far out into the sea, the Atlantic throbbing and sparkling under the blue sky, and across the loch the jagged gray range of the Cuchullins, peak upon peak. "Isn't it all beautiful? We came into being together. Heleval was a giant in those days, a king among other kings; and there was no sea there, and the Cuchullin Hills stood right up into the sky, and twisted and bubbled while the Earth cooled and cracked, and my sisters of the Fire came out of the cracks and taught us mountain spirits the fire dance, and we danced it all night on the great peaks till the stars reeled to watch us. And then the fiery summits cooled and sank down, and my sisters of the Fire sank with them, and a mighty river went foaming out down the valley yonder to a distant sea; and every evening my sisters the Naiads came floating up in a circle with garlands of green on their hair, and they taught us mountain spirits the water dance, and we danced it all night on the moonlit water, while the Ocean crept nearer and nearer to gaze. And then the sea came up, and the river carved Heleval out as you see it, and shrank away, and my sisters the Naiads shrank away with it; and the island was covered with great forests, and my sisters the Hamadryads came out of the tree-trunks and taught us mountain spirits the tree dance, and we danced it all night in the forest glades, till one night men saw; and men felled the forests to capture my sisters of the trees and enslave them, but they vanished as the trees vanished. And to-day only the hills are left, and we, the Oreads, a people few and fading away; and we no longer dance, for we have lost all our sisters, and we no longer have hearts."