Saxe Holm's Stories, Second Series. Helen Maria Fiske Hunt Jackson

and again the tears filled her eyes.

      "Oh, Miss Margaret!" cried Karl. He had never seen tears in her eyes before. The sight unmanned him. His "Oh, Miss Margaret!" was a cry from the very depths of his heart.

      The hour had come. Who keeps calendar for the flowers that each blossom bides its time, and blooms at its fated second by sun, by moon, by star, or by breeze! Who keeps calendar for hearts?

      The hour had come. Margaret looked full into Karl's face, and said in a low voice, "I was thinking of a year ago yesterday, Mr. Reutner; and I was so sorry for having made you unhappy then."

      ​Astonishment and wounded feeling struggled on Karl's features for a second. That Margaret should voluntarily allude to that bitter day seemed heartless indeed. In the next second, something in her face smote on his sight, dazzling, bewildering, terrifying him. The celestial light in her heart shone through her eyes.

      Karl gave one piercing look, piercing as if he were seeking to read some farthest star—then sank slowly on his knees, buried his face in Margaret's lap, and spoke no word. Margaret laid one hand lightly on his head. Tremblingly he took it, lifted his head, still without looking into her face, and laid his cheek down on the firm soft palm.

      Karl Reutner could not speak. He did not distinctly know whether he were alive. With her free hand, Margaret stroked his hair as she might that of a tired child. An ineffable peace filled her soul.

      At last, Karl said, very slowly, almost stammeringly, without lifting his head, "Miss Margaret, beautiful angel of God, I cannot look in your eyes; to see them again would make my heart stop to beat. Will you let that I go away from you now, out under the sky? When I can come back, even if it is a long time, may I come to you?"

      Margaret bent her head and whispered, "yes, Karl."

      He stooped still lower, kissed the hem of the gown on whose folds he had been kneeling, and then without one look at Margaret, went slowly out ​of the room. When he came back, the twilight was nearly over; stars were beginning to shine in the sky; Margaret had not moved from her seat; the door stood still ajar as he had left it; softly, so softly, that his steps could hardly be heard, he crossed the room, and stood, silent, before her; then he lifted his hands high above her head, and opening them, let fall a shwer of daisies: on her neck, bosom, lap, feet, everywhere, rested the fragrant blossoms.

      "Now you will let that they tell you all," he said; "now you will let that they lie at your feet."

      His tone was grave and calm; his looks were grave and calm: but his eyes shone with such joy, such rapture, that Margaret, in her turn, found it hard to meet them.

      An hour later, when Karl and Margaret went into the dining-room, hand in hand, Wilhelm and Annette gazed at them for a moment in speechless wonder. Then Annette ran out of the room sobbing. Wilhelm said aloud: "God be praised!" Then walking swiftly towards them, he looked first into Margaret's face, then into Karl's, and exclaimed again: "God be praised."

      "Wilhelm," said Margaret, "will you, too, forgive me for the day I made sad for you a year ago? Karl has forgiven it."

      Wilhelm's answer was a look. Then he fell on Karl's neck, and was not ashamed of the tears that would come. Not often do two men love as did these twin brothers.

      ​It all seemed to Wilhelm and Annette impossible, incredible. Their eyes followed Karl, followed Margaret with an expression which was half joy and half fear. But to Karl and Margaret the new happiness seemed strangely natural, assured. Like a crystal hidden in stone, it had grown, and now that the store had been broken open, and the crystal set free, every ray of the sun that fell on it was multiplied, and the brilliant light seemed only inevitable.

      Later in the evening Karl put a ring upon Margaret's finger. It was dark, and she could not see the design.

      "Could you promise not to see till the sunlight should come to-morrow?" said Karl. "I would like that the sun should light it up first for your eyes."

      Margaret smiled. "Oh, foolish Karl! I will try not to look; but you ask a great deal."

      Karl turned the ring round and round on the finger, as Margaret's hand lay in his.

      "I have a long time had this ring—more than one year. It was to be for you if I died, or if you were to be married to——" Karl could not now pronounce the words "another man." He went on: "I thought that then you would wear it and not be angry. I not once thought I could put it on for you with my own hand;" and Karl lifted both Margaret's hands, covered them with kisses, laid them against his cheek, on his forehead, on his heart.

      ​It was strange to see this lover, in these few hours, already so free from fear. His child-like simplicity of nature was the secret of it. Knowing Margaret to be his own, he joyed in her as he joyed in sunlight. He took the delights of seeing and touching her, as freely as he would bask under the blue sky. He could no more feel restraint from one than from the other.

      "Karl, if you really do not want me to see the ring, you must roll a tiny bit of paper round it," said Margaret. "It feels very large."

      "Yes, it is large. It could not be small to tell what it tells," replied Karl, rolling a fine tissue paper carefully over and under it, and twisting it firmly. "Mine own, mine own," he said, kissing the hand and the ring, "when the to-morrow sun shines from the lake to your bed, lift your hand in the light and look."

      When the "to-morrow sun" first shone on Margaret's bed, Margaret was asleep. When she waked, the room was flooded with yellow light. Dimly at first, like memories of dreams, came the recollections of her new happiness; then clearer and clearer in triumphant joy. She raised her left hand in the great yellow sunbeams, which seemed to make a golden pathway from the very sky to her bed. Slowly she unwound the rosy tissue paper from her ring. A low cry of astonishment broke from her lips. She had never seen anything so beautiful. On a broad gold band was curled a tiny thread ​like stem, bearing a four-leaved clover of dark green enamel. The edge of each leaf was set thick with diamonds, and the lines down the centre were marked by diamonds, so small, as to be little more than shining points. Margaret's second thought was one of dismay. "Oh, the wicked Karl! To spend so much money! It would almost furnish our little house. What shall I do with such a ring as this?"

      But surprises were in store for Margaret. When she gently reproached Karl for having spent so much money on the ring, his face flushed, and he hesitated a moment before replying. Then he said, with inexpressible sweetness, taking both her hands in his, "My Margaret, I have much money. I was glad before, for Wilhelm, and the little ones. But now that I can make all beautiful for you, I so much thank God. It was a chance that I have it. I know not how to find it, as your people do. It was the land."

      Karl Reutner was indeed a rich man. Lands which he had bought a few years before, for, as he said, "such little of money," were now a fortune in themselves. And it was in consequence of this increase of his wealth that he had so earnestly besought his brother Wilhelm to let him provide a new home for the family.

      "But now, my Margaret, it shall be for you," he said. "I hope that there shall be enough that you have all things you have ever had dream of."

      ​Margaret sighed. Almost she regretted this wealth. It was not thus she had pictured her life with Karl. But her love of beauty, of culture, of art, was too strong for her to be long reluctant that the fullness of life should come to her.

      "Oh Karl! Karl!" she said, "I cannot believe that I am to have you, and all else in life besides. Dear one, I do not deserve it."

      Karl was lying at her feet, his head resting on her knees, as he had bowed it when he first knew that she loved him; only that now he dared to gaze steadily into her eyes. He did not reply for some moments, then he said:—

      "The good God knows, my Margaret. Perhaps there will come sorrow for you, if it needs for his Heaven that you be more of angel than you are. But for my love, that is only like the daisies. It is enough that it can make a beautiful ground where you walk."

      Since these things which I have written, many years have gone by, and have not yet brought sorrow to Margaret. The windows of her beautiful home look out