t have known or
experienced, he remained a great child all the same. Yes, I tell you,
refined and as aloof from evil. He had such a power of refinement in
himself that what did not appeal to his nature was annihilated by it.
It no longer existed for him."

"Oh, mother, how was it all? Oh, why have you been given this
experience, and not I!" She had hardly spoken the words when she turned
and ran swiftly away. The mother let her alone; she sat on a stone and
waited her return. It was good to rest with her thoughts. She sat a
long time alone, and would willingly have sat longer; but the clouds
began to gather. Then Magne came back with a nosegay of the most
beautiful wild flowers and delicate grasses arranged about a fir branch
covered with cones, grey-green young cones.

"Mother, he was like this nosegay, wasn't he? What, dear mother, are
you crying?"

"I am crying for joy, my child; for joy and regret both together. One
day you will come to understand that those are the most comforting
tears in the world."

But Magne had thrown herself down on the ground by her side. "Mother,
you don't know how happy you have made me to-day!"

"I see I have, dear child; I was right to wait; it was a struggle, but
I did right."

"Mother, dear mother, let us go back to the forest at home, to the road
through our forest! Let me hear more! It was there it happened, then!
Mother, tell me! What came next, sweetest mother! Ah, how lovely you
are! There is always something fresh to discover in you."

The mother stroked her hair in silence, soothingly.

"Mother, I know that woodland road on summer nights. Laura walked there
with me when she was engaged, and told me how it all happened, and the
fishers rode past that time too, just as we came to an opening. We hid
ourselves behind a great boulder; and the thrush began to sing, and
many other birds, but the thing that affected me most was the scented
air."

"Yes, doesn't it? And that is why I have always thought since that the
woodland scent hung around Karl. Ah, I must tell you how curiously
unconscious he was--what other word can I use? We stood still and
looked over the lake. 'Oh, what a longing that gives,' said I. 'Yes, a
longing to bathe, doesn't it?' said he."

Magne broke into hearty laughter; the mother smiled. "Now it no longer
seems so strange to me. The water was more to him than it is to us--he
used to plunge into a bath at the most unexpected times: when he was
not to b