“Come down to you, my angel and my queen! to you, whose beauty is so heavenly and so royal that it seems to me everyone should worship and adore you! how could I come down to you!  Ah, Nora, it seems to me that it is you who have stooped to me!  There are kings on this earth, my beloved, who might be proud to place such regal beauty on their thrones beside them!  For, oh! you are as beautiful, my Nora, as any woman of old, for whom heroes lost worlds!”

“Do you think so? do you really think so?  I am so glad for your sake!  I wish I were ten times as beautiful! and high-born, and learned, and accomplished, and wealthy, and everything else that is good, for your sake!  Herman, I would be willing to pass through a fiery furnace if by doing so I could come out like refined gold, for your sake!”

“Hush, hush, sweet love! that fiery furnace of which you speak is the Scriptural symbol for fearful trial and intense suffering! far be it from you! for I would rather my whole body were consumed to ashes than one shining tress of your raven hair should be singed!”

“But, Herman! one of the books you read to me said:  ’All that is good must be toiled for; all that is best must be suffered for’; and I am willing to do or bear anything in the world that would make me more worthy of you!”

“My darling, you are worthy of a monarch, and much too good for me!”

“How kind you are to say so! but for all that I know I am only a poor, humble, ignorant girl, quite unfit to be your wife!  And, oh! sometimes it makes me very sad to think so!” said Nora, with a deep sigh.

“Then do not think so, my own! why should you?  You are beautiful; you are good; you are lovely and beloved, and you ought to be happy!” exclaimed Herman.

“Oh, I am happy! very happy now!  For whatever I do or say, right or wrong, is good in your eyes, and pleases you because you love me so much.  God bless you!  God love you!  God save you, whatever becomes of your poor Nora!” she said, with a still heavier sigh.

At this moment a soft summer cloud floated between them and the blazing meridian sun, veiling its glory.

“Why, what is the matter, love?  What has come over you?” inquired Herman, gently caressing her.

“I do not know; nothing more than that perhaps,” answered Nora, pointing to the cloud that was now passing over the sun.

“‘Nothing more than that.’  Well, that has now passed, so smile forth again, my sun!” said Herman gayly.

“Ah, dear Herman, if this happy life could only last! this life in which we wander or repose in these beautiful summer woods, among rills and flowers and birds!  Oh, it is like the Arcadia of which you read to me in your books, Herman!  Ah, if it would only last!”

“Why should it not, love?”

“Because it cannot.  Winter will come with its wind and snow and ice.  The woods will be bare, the grass dry, the flowers all withered, the streams frozen, and the birds gone away, and we—­” Here her voice sank into silence, but Herman took up the word: