The red weasel, the bee, and the bramble, and many others, moved to watch her.

Tiny red weasel eyes stared hungrily at us.

There he saw gazing at him the whiskered face of a red weasel, looking without pity, without fear.

And the red weasel answered:

But the red weasel, resting at the doorway of his hole, did not blink a lid of his sharp eyes.

And there looked up from the hillside the bright eyes of the red weasel, but he crouched in the grasses without reply.

"She came, yet she came not," said the red weasel.

"She is not dead," said the red weasel; "she hath been to the great city."

"She is not dead," saith the red weasel; "she hath been to the great city."

"She hath returned," said the red weasel; "see where she sitteth, her head upon her hand.

"She will know thee no more," said the red weasel; "she hath been to the great city."

"It is she," said the red weasel, "who sitteth upon the mountain, her face hidden between her hands.

"It is she," said the red weasel, laughing in his throat; "but her eyes are hidden by her fingers, and she cannot see."

"It is so great," said the red weasel, "that those who leave the mountains for love of it return to us no more."