Households ravaged by the visitations of the Koshare were being restored to order, the exhausted dancers were being feasted, and the estufas were being cleared of everything bearing a sacred character.

Young men and boys still loitered in groups, repeating with hoarse voices the songs and chants they had lately addressed to the ruler of day.
On the terrace roof of the home of Tyope's wife a young girl stood quite alone, gazing at that moon where the mother of all mankind, the Sanatyaya, is supposed to reside.

It was Mitsha Koitza, who had just returned from the estufa of her clan with the mother-soul of her own home, and who still lingered here holding in her hands the cluster of snowy, delicate feathers.

She thinks, while her nimble fingers play with it, of the young man who has been her partner the whole day, who has danced beside her so quiet, modest, and yet so handsome, and who once appeared to her on this same roof brave and resolute in her defence.
While she thus stands, gazes, and dreams, a flake of down becomes detached and quivers upward into the calm, still air.

Involuntarily the maiden fastens her glance on the plumelet, which flits upward and upward in the direction of the moon's silvery orb.