Three Weeks

But oh! he wished he could drive all care from her path, and that this glorious life should go on for ever.

When they got to the farm in the soft late afternoon light, the most gracious mood came over his lady. It was just a Swiss farmhouse of many storeys, the lower one for the cows and other animals, and the rest for the family and industries. All was clean and in order, with that wonderful outside neatness which makes Swiss châlets look like painted toy houses popped down on the greensward without yard or byre. And these people were well-to-do, and it was the best of its kind.

The Bäuerin, a buxom mother of many little ones, was nursing another not four weeks old, a fat, prosperous infant in its quaint Swiss clothes. Her broad face beamed with pride as she welcomed the gracious lady. Old acquaintances they appeared, and they exchanged greetings. Foreign languages were not Paul's strong point, and he caught not a word of meaning in the German patois the good woman talked. But his lady was voluble, and seemed to know each flaxen-haired child by name, though it was the infant which longest arrested her attention. She held it in her arms. And Paul had never seen her look so young or so beautiful.

The good woman left them alone while she prepared some coffee for them in the adjoining kitchen, followed by her troop of kinder. Only the little one still lay in the lady's arms. She spoke not a word--she sang to it a cradle-song, and the thought came to Paul that she seemed as an angel, and this must be an echo of his own early heaven before his life had descended to earth.

A strange peace came over him as he sat there watching her, his thoughts vague and dreamy of some beautiful sweet tenderness--he knew not what.

Ere the woman returned with the coffee the lady looked up from her crooning and met his eyes--all her soul was aglow in hers--while she whispered as he bent over to meet her lips: "Yes, some day, my sweetheart--yes."

And that magic current of sympathy which was between them made Paul know what she meant. And the gladness of the gods fell upon him and exalted him, and his blue eyes swam with tears.

Ah! that was a thought, if that could ever be!

All the way back in the carriage he could only kiss her. Their emotion seemed too deep for words.

And this night was the most divine of any they had spent on the Bürgenstock. But there was in it an essence about which only the angels could write.