this will be done if the married pair bring only right
intentions into the house. Then want and care, disturbing, nay even
bitter hours, may come, but they will also go; and the bonds of love and
truth will be consolation, nay, even will give strength. You have
spoken, Emelie, of death and separation as the end of the drama of life;
you have forgotten the awaking again, and the second youth, of which
the ancient northern Vala sings. Married life, like all life, has such a
second youth; yes, indeed, a progressive one, because it has its
foundation in the life which is eternal; and every contest won, every
danger passed through, every pain endured, change themselves into
blessings on home and on the married pair, who have thus obtained better
knowledge, and who are thus more closely united."

He spoke with unusual warmth, and not without emotion, and his
expressive glance sought and dwelt upon his wife, who had approached
unobserved, and who had listened to Emelie's bitter satire with stinging
pain, because she knew that there was a degree of truth in it.

But as her husband spoke, she felt that he perceived the full truth, and
her heart beat freer and stronger, and all at once a clearness was in
her soul. With her head bent forward, she gazed on him with a glance
full of tenderness and confidence, forgetting herself, and listening
with fervour to every word which he uttered. In this very moment their
eyes met, and there was much, inexpressibly much, in their glance; a
clear crimson of delight flushed her cheek, and made her beautiful. The
gentle happiness which now animated her being, together with her lovely
figure, her graceful movements, and the purity of her brow, made her far
more fascinating than her lovely rival. Her husband followed her with
his eyes, as kindly and attentively she busied herself among her guests,
or with the little Gabriele in her arms mingled in the children's dance,
for which Evelina's foster-daughters were playing a four-handed piece.
He had suddenly cooled towards his "old flame," nor was he at all warmed
again by the sharp tone with which the little caressing Petrea was
reproved for being too obtrusive.

"Our little Louise in time will dance very well," remarked the Judge to
his wife, as he noticed with great pleasure the little _brisees_ and
_chassees_ of his daughter whom the twelve-years-old Nils Gabriel
Stjernhoek twirled round, and with whom he conversed with great gravity,
and a cer