g
sound without. She knew it was the time for the storks to depart,
and that it must be their wings which she heard. She felt she should
like to see them once more, and bid them farewell. She rose from her
couch, stepped out on the threshold, and beheld, on the ridge of the
roof, a party of storks ranged side by side. Troops of the birds
were flying in circles over the castle and the highest trees; but just
before her, as she stood on the threshold and close to the well
where Helga had so often sat and alarmed her with her wildness, now
stood two swans, gazing at her with intelligent eyes. Then she
remembered her dream, which still appeared to her as a reality. She
thought of Helga in the form of a swan. She thought of a Christian
priest, and suddenly a wonderful joy arose in her heart. The swans
flapped their wings and arched their necks as if to offer her a
greeting, and the Viking's wife spread out her arms towards them, as
if she accepted it, and smiled through her tears. She was roused
from deep thought by a rustling of wings and snapping of beaks; all
the storks arose, and started on their journey towards the south.

"We will not wait for the swans," said the mamma stork; "if they
want to go with us, let them come now; we can't sit here till the
plovers start. It is a fine thing after all to travel in families, not
like the finches and the partridges. There the male and the female
birds fly in separate flocks, which, to speak candidly, I consider
very unbecoming."

"What are those swans flapping their wings for?"

"Well, every one flies in his own fashion," said the papa stork.
"The swans fly in an oblique line; the cranes, in the form of a
triangle; and the plovers, in a curved line like a snake."

"Don't talk about snakes while we are flying up here," said
stork-mamma. "It puts ideas into the children's heads that can not
be realized."

"Are those the high mountains I have heard spoken of?" asked
Helga, in the swan's plumage.

"They are storm-clouds driving along beneath us," replied her
mother.

"What are yonder white clouds that rise so high?" again inquired
Helga.

"Those are mountains covered with perpetual snows, that you see
yonder," said her mother. And then they flew across the Alps towards
the blue Mediterranean.

"Africa's land! Egyptia's strand!" sang the daughter of the
Nile, in her swan's plumage, as from the upper air she caught sight of
her native land, a narrow, golden, wavy strip o