onunciation was so good, and at the same time so
absurd, that they both laughed joyously.

They walked slowly towards the gate, behind which Gray Eagle was
waiting with what patience he might.

"Tell me, my pr-rincess, why have you not allowed me to see you since
that evening, though I have come every day?"

"That terrible evening! Oh, Friedrich----"

"Say that again!"

"What? Friedrich?"

"Yes. Now just one time more."

"How absurd you are, Friedrich!"

"I thank you. Now tell me."

"Why, for the first day or two there was so much to do in getting them
away in their different directions--Hilda and John. Grandmother has had
a letter from John, from Palm Beach. He has joined Baron von Sternburg
there. And then--oh, Friedrich, perhaps it was foolish, but I could not
feel as if we ought to be happy, you and I, so soon after _that_."

"What a dear, sensitive child you are! And you thought the time of
mourning was up to-day, did you?"

"No, but--you won't make fun of me if I tell you?"

"I have al-ways supposed that it was you who teased me."

"But you might think it was funny ever so many years from now!"

"Ah, now there are going to be _years_ in the future. Only a little
while ago the future was made up of thousands and thousands and
thousands of inter-rminable days."

"I know."

"You felt it so, too?"

"Yes. That's the reason why--you won't ever laugh at me, will you?--I
wanted the years to begin to-day. I couldn't wait another twenty-four
hours."

"My dar-rling!"

They stopped, and Friedrich drew her gently into his arms.

"Will you let me kiss you?"

She lifted her face trustfully to his, and Gray Eagle watched them
gravely over the gate.

"I wees' I could make you know what you are to me, my pr-rincess, what
it means that you give yourself to me. It is not merely that I love
you, my dar-rling, with all the strength that has been gathering in me
while the years were adding themselves to my age. And it is not only
that I think you are per-rfect, so lovely in the char-racter, and so
clever, and so beautiful, my dear white r-rose. It means, besides those
things, that you have saved me from the sin of letting my poor powers
grow weaker; that you have changed me from a plaything of chance into a
man of will and action. I am bor-rn again, my heart's joy, into a world
of force and possibility, and you are the queen of the world, most
pr-recious."

She laid her bright head against his breast.