What was it, in fact, that she had wished for to-day?  She did not know—­no, she did not!  She only knew that her happiness was there—­and so she had let it remain.  Now she was disappointed and deluded in a way that certainly few had been.

She could not bear to desecrate him further.  Then the winter song swept past in his voice, sweet, full, sorrowful, as if it wished to make all clear to her; and, tractable as a child, she composed herself and listened.  What did it say?  That her dreams united two summers, the one which had been and the one which was slowly struggling up anew.  Thanks be to the dreams which had awakened it.  It said, too, that the dreams were something in themselves often of greater truth than reality itself.  She had felt this when she was tending her flowers.

In her uneasy tossing in her bed, her plait had come close to her hand.  Sadly she drew it forward; he had kissed it again to-day.  And so she lay on her side, and took it between her hands, and cried.

“Mamma, mamma!” she heard whispered, and thus she slept.

  THE NOVELS OF BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON

  Edited by EDMUND GOSSE

  Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 3s. net

Synnoeve Solbakken Arne A Happy Boy The Fisher Lass The Bridal March, & One Day Magnhild, & Dust Captain Mansana, & Mother’s Hands Absalom’s Hair, & A Painful Memory

LONDON

WILLIAM HEINEMANN

21 Bedford Street, W. C.

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. London and Edinburgh