And Peter Grimm, looking down at her, smiled as he caught the whispered word.
"Yes, lievling," he answered. "To-morrow. Isn't it a marvellous word? It holds all the hopes and fears of the whole world."
"I'm so happy! I'm so happy!" she breathed.
The Dead Man laid his hand gently on the soft lustre of her hair.
"Then, good-night to you, my darling," he said in the old tender voice that had comforted her childish griefs and shared her childish delights in the bygone days. "Good-night, my darling. Love can never say 'good-bye.' I am going, little girl. I am leaving you here in your dear home that shall always be yours. Here, in the years that are to come, the way will lie clear before you. May pleasure and peace go with you, little girl of mine."
Her eyes were luminous. There was a half-smile on her lips. Peter Grimm's own eyes reflected her smile as he stroked her hair and continued to look down into her rapt face as though to impress its every detail upon his memory.
"Here on sunny, blossoming days," he went on, "when you look out on my old gardens, as a happy wife, all the flowers and trees and shrubs shall bloom enchanted to your eyes. For, love gives a heaven-light to everything. And when the home we love is our own, it becomes doubly fair."
The light in her eyes grew brighter and he stooped to brush his lips to her forehead.
"All that happens, happens again," he went on in that same caressing voice as though loath to leave her, and seeking to prolong his stay at her side. "And when, as a mother, you explain each leaf and bud, and the miracle of the growing flowers to your own little people, you will sometimes think of the days when you and I walked through the gardens and the leafy lanes together, and how I taught you all those things—even as you shall be teaching your own children. Yes,—all that happens, happens again and has happened before. You will teach them, just as I taught you. And so I shall always linger in your heart. Here, in our home, everything will keep on reminding you of me. Not in sadness nor in gloom. But as a wonderful, golden memory. You will forget only the part of me that was stubborn and unreasonable and ill-tempered—and you will remember me only as I wished to be. That is one of the gifts of God to those who have left this world. Their dear ones remember them only as kind, as loving, as good. Their faults fade from the memory and the good ever glows more and more brightly."
He paused. And still he could not leave the happy girl as she sat there in her blissful, fireside reverie.