"Yes, I am here once more; but I shall not disturb you again after to-day; though I regret my departure from Christiania, now that I have known you."
"You regard me well," she replied sadly; "and, perhaps, it is, sir, because you have seen me thus dutifully employed; but I do no more than she would have done for me, had I been the first to die. This, sir, is my mother's grave."
The girl turned away her face, and busied herself with the renewal of her task, and plucked the weeds, one by one, from the grave. How great was the contrast with my own country, England, where the moss and long grass soon conceal the tomb of relative and friend, and living footstep comes no more near the spot where the dead lie; but here, in simple Norway, the ties between those who breathe, and those who are gone, are still existent; nor does "death bring oblivion to the living as well as to the dead." Strewn with the flowers of yesterday, the grave gives no evidence that death has broken the strong links of affection; and while I gazed and marked this young girl's sweet solicitude, a melancholy feeling, even in the soul's desolation, came with a hope, that I too may not rest altogether unremembered.
"How can I fail," I replied, "to love one who has not only affectionate tenderness of heart, but surpassing beauty of form? God has denied you nothing."
"Oh! sir, do not say so," she exclaimed. "Heaven has been good to me; but I am also afflicted. My father sleeps in a distant land, and my poor mother here; and, look, how young I am to be alone."
The tears followed each other down her face, and the intensity of her grief was too great to allow Gunilda, for some moments, to speak. Looking up into my face, her eyes still filled with tears, she said,
"My condition is one of extreme sorrow and loneliness; and if you could hear it all, you would confess that I have cause to weep as well as others. But think me not ungrateful."
"One whose heart is so guileless can never know ingratitude," I replied. "But may I know your sorrows?"
"Would you like to hear them, sir?"
"I would."