At length the time arrived when the husband and wife were at liberty to interchange their thoughts freely; the children had been nicely tucked in their little beds, and Ragnar and Magde alone occupied their private apartment.
"Now, dear Magde, now you must give me a good kiss. God bless you for this happy moment. After tossing six months upon the ocean, it is a joy indeed to return to one's own home and wife."
"Is it true indeed, dear Ragnar, that you love me now as you did when we were married?"
"Did you find no four-leaved clover last summer, that you ask me this question?"
Without replying, Magde hastily opened a clothes press, and produced an old compass box, from which she took a handful of withered clover leaves.
"See here," said she.
"And do these not convince you?" inquired Ragnar.
In this old box, Magde preserved, so to speak, the tokens of her wedded joys. From the first year of her marriage, she, whenever her husband was absent, would seek in the meadow for four-leaved clovers, under the conviction that so long as she continued to find them, she might rely upon the continued love and fidelity of her husband. And she was invariably successful, and each year she deposited the clover leaves in the old compass box. As Ragnar uttered his last question, Magde cast herself upon his breast, and gazed tenderly into his face.
"O don't look at me too closely, to-morrow I will look better, after I am washed and dressed," said Ragnar, arranging his shirt bosom, and smoothing down his jacket collar.
"You are so good already, that if you should be better it would be dangerous; but Ragnar, you have forgotten to measure the children to see how much they have grown since your departure. You used to do that as soon as you entered the house after a return from a long voyage."