It was a laugh, low but genuine, and full of a silver trickle of sound. The elder woman caught up the girl impetuously into a close embrace.
"My dear! my dear! is it really you? I can't believe it. After these dreadful three months in which you have hardly said as many words. It would be a miracle, if there were any saints in Doom to work one."
She drew away for a moment, her eyes ablaze with excitement. There was a smooth, graceful strength in her every movement that was almost animal-like; she suggested the idea of a big cat as she alternately released the girl and then returned, in a half-circle, to take renewed possession of her. "A miracle!" she repeated.
"Indeed, it almost needed that to bring me to myself," said the girl, gravely. "But now I see things clearly; it seems almost as though the mother herself had stood beside me and drawn the veil away. It was Ugo, though, who really did it," she added, and laughed again softly.
"Ugo!" echoed the other, indignantly. "And, if you please, where is the fellow? The candles have not been lighted, the fire is dying out, and not a sign of supper visible. It is unbearable, Esmay, and he shall pack this very night."
"But Nanna!"
"I won't listen to a word."
"You will. He has gone already."
She pushed the elder woman into a chair. "Now don't dare to move until I am back with wood and a light. Not a word, sister mine—if you love me." Taken by surprise, Nanna let her go, and sat waiting.
The girl returned in a few minutes with a basket containing several lumps of sea-coal.