e began to weep.

She led him away to a tomb. She sat down on it, pulled him down in
front of her and laid his bead on her lap. She sat and caressed
him, while he wept.

He was like some one waking from a nightmare.

"Why am I weeping?" he asked himself. "Oh, I know; I had such a
terrible dream. But it is not true. She is alive. I have not killed
her. So foolish to weep for a dream."

Gradually everything grew clear to him; but his tears continued to
flow. She sat and caressed him, but he wept still for a long time.

"I feel such a need of weeping," he said.

Then he looked up and smiled. "Is it Easter now?" he asked.

"What do you mean by now?"

"It can be called Easter, when the dead rise again," he continued.
Thereupon, as if they had been intimate many years, he began to
tell her about the Spirit of Fasting and of his revolt against her
rule.

"It is Easter now, and the end of her reign," she said.

But when he realized that Edith was sitting there and caressing
him, he had to weep again. He needed so much to weep. All the
distrust of life which misfortunes had brought to the little
Vaermland boy needed tears to wash it away. Distrust that love and
joy, beauty and strength blossomed on the earth, distrust in
himself, all must go, all did go, for if was Easter; the dead lived
and the Spirit of Fasting would never again _come into power_.

THE LEGEND OF THE BIRD'S NEST

Hatto the hermit stood in the wilderness and prayed to God. A storm
was raging, and his long beard and matted hair waved about him like
weather-beaten tufts of grass on the summit of an old ruin. But he
did not push his hair out of his eyes, nor did he tuck his beard
into his belt, for his arms were uplifted in prayer. Ever since
sunrise he had raised his gnarled, hairy arms towards heaven, as
untiringly as a tree stretches up its branches, and he meant to
remain standing so till night. He had a great boon to pray for.

He was a man who had suffered much of the world's anger. He had
himself persecuted and tortured, and persecutions and torture from
others had fallen to his share, more than his heart could bear. So
he went out on the great heath, dug himself a hole in the river
bank and became a holy man, whose prayers were heard at God's throne.

Hatto the hermit stood there on the river bank by his hole and
prayed the great prayer of his life. He prayed God that He should
appoint the day of doom for this wicked world. He called