. Our life was one continued flight from the
outer world, but it was a flight into Paradise. He refused all
invitations; he had hardly time to speak to the people who came to see
him; he would not have them in the house. He and I, and I and he, in
the big rooms, and the smaller ones, he in mine or I in his. And on the
country roads, in the fields, in the mountain pastures, on the lake, on
the ice, working, superintending together, together always, or if we
were away from each other it was but to meet again at the very earliest
moment. But the more we were together the more I came to understand the
wealth of his nature. What impressed me most about him was not the flow
of ideas, it was the man himself. To fathom his perfect uprightness,
clear to the very bottom, gave me the most glorious moments I have
known. His devotion to me--or what shall I call it?--was all summed up
in one image--his mighty head on my lap! There he often rested it, and
always said, 'How good it is to be here!'"

And the daughter laid her head in her mother's lap and sobbed.

It began to rain. They rose and went home again. The little assembly
house up by the station loomed more indistinct but more inviting
through the rain. And the landscape took on a greater harmony of tints
and greater friendliness; the scent from the birch-trees seemed
trebled.

"Yes, my child. I believe I have given you some of his aspirations.
Have I not?" She bent down towards her face.

Instead of answering, the daughter pressed closer to her.

They waited a moment before going on.

"You have a longing, yearning nature; you inherited it, and I have
stimulated it in you by what I learnt from him. I have put great
objects, noble men and women before you. So did he; I have plunged you
into lofty thoughts, as he plunged in nature to refresh his own. I knew
when I sent you away from me that I was acting in accordance with his
spirit. But I knew best with what armour you were equipped: it came to
you from him. And yet.... Magne!"

The daughter instinctively drew her arm from within the mother's and
stood still. She needed to rest on her own strength, as it were.

"Yes, I see it; that is the third time to-day. You feel that I am
taking hold upon you; and I _will_ take hold upon you. It was at the
party at your uncle's that you said to me, when I was going in to
supper, 'Mother, you might as well keep on your gloves.' You were
ashamed of my work-hardened hands."

"Mother,