I first saw an Oread in this place in a snow-storm which, driven by a north-westerly gale, did havoc to the lowlands, but not to the folded hills. I had pushed up the valley in the teeth of the storm to see it under the white stress. It was hard work for me and my dog; I had to wade knee-deep, and he to jump, like a cat in long grass, through the drifts. But we reached our haven and found shelter from the weather. High above us where we stood the snow-flakes tossed and rioted, but before they fell upon us being out of the wind, they drifted idly down, _come ... in Alpe senza vento_. The whole valley was purely white, its outlines blurred by the slant-driving snow. There was not a living creature to be seen, and my dog, a little sharp-nosed black beast, shivered as he looked about, with wide eyes and quick-set ears, for a friendly sight, and held one paw tentatively in the air, as if he feared the cold.
Suddenly he yelped once, and ran, limping on three legs or scuttling on all four, over the snow toward the great eastern escarpment, but midway stopped and looked with all his might into its smoothed hollow. His jet-black ears stood sharp as a hare's; through the white scud I was conscious that he trembled. He gazed into the sweep of the curving hill, and following the direction he gave me, all my senses quick, I gazed also, but for a while saw nothing.
Very gradually, without alarm on my part, a blur of colour seemed to form itself and centre in one spot, half-way up the concave of the down; very pale yellow, a soft, lemon colour. At first scarcely more than a warm tinge to the snow, it took shape as I watched it, and then body also. It was now opaque within semi-transparency; one could trace an outline, a form. Then I made out of it a woman dressed in yellow; a slim woman, tawny-haired, in a thin smock of lemon-yellow which flacked and bellied in the gale. Her hair blew out to it in snaky streamers, sideways. Her head was bent to meet the cold, her bare white arms were crossed, and hugged her shoulders, as if to keep her bosom warm. From mid-thigh downward she was bare and very white, yet distinct upon the snow. That was the white of chilled flesh I could see. Though she wore but a single garment, and that of the thinnest and shortest, though she suffered cold, hugged herself and shivered, she was not of our nature, to die of such exposure. Her eyes, as I could guess, were long-enduring and steadfast. Her lips were not blue, though her teeth seemed to chatter; she was not rigid with the stiffening that precedes frozen death. Drawing near her by degrees, coming within fifteen yards of where she stood and passioned, though she saw me, waited for me, in a way expected me, she showed neither fear nor embarrassment, nor appealed by looks for shelter. She was, rather, like a bird made tame by winter, that finds the lesser fear swallowed up in a greater. For myself, as when one finds one's self before a new thing, one stands and gazes, so was I before this being of the wild. I would go no nearer, speak I could not. But I had no fear. She was new to me not strange. I felt that she and I belonged to worlds apart; that as soon might I hope to be familiar with fox or marten as with her. My little black dog was of the same mind. He was glad when I joined him, and wagged his little body--tail he has none--to say so. But he had no eyes for me, nor I for him. We stood together for company, and filled our eyes with the tenant of the waste. How long we watched her I have no notion, but the day fell swiftly in and found us there.