the bay-window, and looked over the
hawthorn hedge of the garden towards the brown heath. What were they
looking at? Their glances fell upon a stork's nest, which was built
upon an old tumbledown hut. The roof, as far as one existed at all,
was covered with moss and lichen. The stork's nest covered the greater
part of it, and that alone was in a good condition; for it was kept in
order by the stork himself. That is a house to be looked at, and not
to be touched," said the Wind. "For the sake of the stork's nest it
had been allowed to remain, although it is a blot on the landscape.
They did not like to drive the stork away; therefore the old shed was
left standing, and the poor woman who dwelt in it allowed to stay. She
had the Egyptian bird to thank for that; or was it perchance her
reward for having once interceded for the preservation of the nest of
its black brother in the forest of Borreby? At that time she, the
poor woman, was a young child, a white hyacinth in a rich garden. She
remembered that time well; for it was Anna Dorothea.

"'O-h, o-h,' she sighed; for people can sigh like the moaning of
the wind among the reeds and rushes. 'O-h, o-h,' she would say, 'no
bell sounded at thy burial, Waldemar Daa. The poor school-boys did not
even sing a psalm when the former lord of Borreby was laid in the
earth to rest. O-h, everything has an end, even misery. Sister Ida
became the wife of a peasant; that was the hardest trial which
befell our father, that the husband of his own daughter should be a
miserable serf, whom his owner could place for punishment on the
wooden horse. I suppose he is under the ground now; and Ida--alas!
alas! it is not ended yet; miserable that I am! Kind Heaven, grant
me that I may die.'

"That was Anna Dorothea's prayer in the wretched hut that was left
standing for the sake of the stork. I took pity on the proudest of the
sisters," said the Wind. "Her courage was like that of a man; and in
man's clothes she served as a sailor on board ship. She was of few
words, and of a dark countenance; but she did not know how to climb,
so I blew her overboard before any one found out that she was a woman;
and, in my opinion, that was well done," said the Wind.

On such another Easter morning as that on which Waldemar Daa
imagined he had discovered the art of making gold, I heard the tones
of a psalm under the stork's nest, and within the crumbling walls.
It was Anna Dorothea's last song. There was no wi