Yet he gave it little more thought, and turning over, fell into a troubled
sleep, and dreamed of hunting and of the white doe that he had seen a year
before stooping to drink among the red leaves that covered the forest pool.

In the morning his wife was by his side, and the little ones lay asleep upon
their crib. "Where were you," he asked, "last night? I woke, and you were not
here."

His wife looked at him tenderly, and sighed. "You should shut your eyes
better," said she. "I went out to see the white doe, and the little ones came
also. Once a year I see her; it is a thing I must not miss."

The beauty of the white doe was like strong drink to his memory: the beautiful
limbs that had leapt so fast and escaped--they alone, of all the wild life in
the world, had conquered him. "Ah!" he cried, "let me see her, too; let her
come tame to mv hand, and I will not hurt her!"

His wife answered: "The heart of the white doe is too wild a thing; she cannot
come tame to the hand of any hunter under heaven. Sleep again, dear husband,
and wake well! For a whole year you have been sufficiently happy; the white
doe would only wound you again in your two hands."

When his wife was not by, the hunter took the two children upon his knee, and
said, "Tell me, what was the white doe like? what did she do? and what way did
she go?"

The children sprang off his knee, and leapt to and fro over the stream. "She
was like this," they cried, "and she did this, and this was the way she went!"
At that the hunter drew his hand over his brow. "Ah," he said, "I seemed then