er cheeks. Britta stood gazing on this fair sight till her
affectionate little heart overflowed, and the ready tears dropped like
diamonds from her curly lashes.

"Oh, my dear--my dear!" she whispered in a sort of rapture when there
was a gentle movement,--and two star-like eyes opened like blue flowers
outspreading to the sun.

"Is that you, Britta?" asked a tender, wondering voice--and with a
smothered cry of ecstacy, Britta sprang to seize the outstretched hand
of her beloved Froeken, and cover it with kisses. And while Thelma
laughed with pleasure to see her, and stroked her hair. Sir Philip
described their long drive through the snow, and so warmly praised
Britta's patience, endurance, and constant cheerfulness, that his voice
trembled with its own earnestness, while Britta grew rosily red in her
deep shyness and embarrassment, vehemently protesting that she had done
nothing,--nothing at all to deserve so much commendation. Then, after
much glad converse, Ulrika was called, and Sir Philip seizing her hand,
shook it with such force and fervor that she was quite overcome.

"I don't know how to thank you!" he said, his eyes sparkling with
gratitude. "It's impossible to repay such goodness as yours! My wife
tells me how tender and patient and devoted you have been--that even
when she knew nothing else, she was aware of your kindness. God bless
you for it! You have saved her life--"

"Ah, yes, indeed!" interrupted Thelma gently. "And life has grown so
glad for me again! I do owe you so much."

"You owe me nothing," said Ulrika in those harsh, monotonous tones which
she had of late learned to modulate. "Nothing. The debt is all on my
side." She stopped abruptly--a dull red color flushed her face--her eyes
dwelt on Thelma with a musing tenderness.

Sir Philip looked at her in some surprise.

"Yes," she went on. "The debt is all on my side. Hear me out, Sir
Philip--and you too,--you 'rose of the northern forest', as Sigurd used
to call you! You have not forgotten Sigurd?"

"Forgotten him?" said Thelma softly. "Never! . . . I loved him too
well!"

Ulrika's head dropped. "He was my son!" she said.

There was a silence of complete astonishment. Ulrika paused--then, as no
one uttered a word, she looked up boldly, and spoke with a sort of
desperate determination.

"You see you have nothing to thank me for," she went on, addressing
herself to Sir Philip, while Thelma, leaning back on her pillows, and
holding Britta