"What is your name, poor little suffering child?" she asked, bending down to him, and speaking softly.
"Martin--what's yours?" he returned, still half sobbing, and rubbing his eyes with his little fists.
"I am called the Lady of the Hills, and I live here alone in the mountain. Tell me, why do you cry, Martin?"
"Because I'm so cold, and--and my legs hurt so, and--and because I want to go back to my mother. She's over there," said he, with another sob, pointing vaguely to the great plain beneath their feet, extending far, far away into the blue distance, where the crimson sun was now setting.
"I will be your mother, and you shall live with me here on the mountain," she said, caressing his little cold hands with hers. "Will you call me mother?"
"You are _not_ my mother," he returned warmly. "I don't want to call you mother."
"When I love you so much, dear child?" she pleaded, bending down until her lips were close to his averted face.
"How that great spotted cat stares at me!" he suddenly said. "Do you think it will kill me?"
"No, no, he only wants to play with you. Will you not even look at me, Martin?"
He still resisted her, but her hand felt very warm and comforting--it was such a large, warm, protecting hand. So pleasant did it feel that after a little while he began to move his hand up her beautiful, soft, white arm until it touched her hair. For her hair was unbound and loose; it was dark, and finer than the finest spun silk, and fell all over her shoulders and down her back to the stone she sat on. He let his fingers stray in and out among it; and it felt like the soft, warm down that lines a little bird's nest to his skin. Finally, he touched her neck and allowed his hand to rest there, it was such a soft, warm neck. At length, but reluctantly, for his little rebellious heart was not yet wholly subdued, he raised his eyes to her face. Oh, how beautiful she was! Her love and eager desire to win him had flushed her clear olive skin with rich red colour; out of her sweet red lips, half parted, came her warm breath on his cheek, more fragrant than wild flowers; and her large dark eyes were gazing down into his with such a tenderness in them that Martin, seeing it, felt a strange little shudder pass through him, and scarcely knew whether to think it pleasant or painful. "Dear child, I love you so much," she spoke, "will you not call me mother?"