She could not bear to desecrate him further. Then the winter song swept past in his voice, sweet, full, sorrowful, as if it wished to make all clear to her; and, tractable as a child, she composed herself and listened. What did it say? That her dreams united two summers, the one which had been and the one which was slowly struggling up anew. Thanks be to the dreams which had awakened it. It said, too, that the dreams were something in themselves often of greater truth than reality itself. She had felt this when she was tending her flowers.
In her uneasy tossing in her bed, her plait had come close to her hand. Sadly she drew it forward; he had kissed it again to-day. And so she lay on her side, and took it between her hands, and cried.
"Mamma, mamma!" she heard whispered, and thus she slept.
THE NOVELS OF BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON
Edited by EDMUND GOSSE
Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 3s. net
Synnövé Solbakken
Arne
A Happy Boy
The Fisher Lass
The Bridal March, & One Day
Magnhild, & Dust
Captain Mansana, & Mother's Hands
Absalom's Hair, & A Painful Memory
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN