brown eyes, like those of the figure Atven had met in
the forest.
"Where is my father? Where am I?" she asked, in a low soft voice, as
she rose up from the rock, and shook out the folds of her long dress.
Father Johannes took her hand, and gently repeated the old legend;
while the Stone-maiden listened with wide-open eyes.
"I remember it all now," she said, as the puzzled look faded from her
face. "We had but just landed when the thick cloud came down, and a
shower of stones fell upon us. My father was smitten down with all his
followers, and I only was left weeping upon the shore. A cold air
seemed to breathe upon me, and I fell asleep."
She spoke slowly, in the old Norse tongue, but Father Johannes had
studied it, and understood her without much questioning.
"Where was your mother?" he asked kindly, as Atven with smiles of
delight, seized her other hand.
"My mother died just before we set sail, and my father would not leave
me lonely," answered the Stone-maiden sadly.
"But we will all love you now," cried Atven. "I will grow tall and
strong to work for you, and you shall never be unhappy any more!"
The Stone-maiden smiled, as she stood on the threshold of her new
life. She looked up trustingly at her two friends, and the old Priest
of Asgard, bending down, laid his hand upon her head with a gentle
blessing.
* * * * *
The Warriors' heads, with their tangled elf-locks, still peer out of
the drifting sand--the twisted bodies in their sea armour, lie half
surrounded by the green waters; but the log hut, and Atven have
vanished into the misty shadows of the past. They, and the good old
priest, have drifted away to Shadow-Land.
Only the sea talks of them still; and croons them a lullaby, as soft
as the centuries-old song, it sang over the cradle of the enchanted
Stone-maiden.
THE GRASS OF PARNASSUS.
On the banks of a clear stream in one of the far away Greek islands,
grew a small flowering plant, with delicate stem and transparent white
flower, called "Grass of Parnassus."
Every day it saw its own face, reflected in the running water, and
every day it made the same complaint--
"This place is beautiful, the soft earth wraps me round, the branches
bend over me, but I can never be happy, for I have never seen a
River-God!"
The fish swimming close to the shore had talked to the Grass, of the
mysterious race who lived in the shallows of the river, higher
|