and was changing colour--she looked up to him as if he had been a
prince. And so he was; for he had a Father who was King over all the
nations of the earth, who loved him as a son, and received from that son
the happy, truthful affection of a true child.

That woman who went about in the simplest of garments, and shunned no
form of labour that made the home more comfortable or attractive, had
become to Karin a model of all that was pure and lovely and lovable. The
baby, who fell much to her care, seemed to have a healing influence on
her wounded, humbled, penitent heart. It had for her its artless smile,
and its little arms went out to her as trustfully as if she had never
strayed from the narrow path. Karin had a new standard in life, a new
picture of what she wished to be, a new way of estimating her
fellow-creatures.

Karin was glad that circumstances made it necessary for her to lay down
in the depths of her capacious trunk the gay garments that had been her
pride. There had been no dressmaking, no consulting of milliner or
_modiste_. Like most Swedish girls, she had a black dress; she had but
to put a crape band over her sailor-hat, and let the short crape veil
fall over her solemnized face, and her mourning suit was for the present
complete.

This time, this precious time, went away all too rapidly, but it swept
from Karin the impressions of years, and strengthened in her, day by
day, the new purposes and the new hopes that had sprung up in the midst
of her humiliation and distress.

From the cottage in the woods the daughter had but taken away her
mother's "psalm-book" in its close-fitting black cotton case, her worn
Bible, and the carefully-folded white handkerchief that lay under them.
In the corner of the handkerchief a large K had been embroidered by
unskilful hands. Karin knew it as one of her own early trophies, that
had been given to her mother in pride when she had received it as a
reward for skill shown in the sewing-class at school. This little
remembrance of her had been treasured and prized while she was living in
selfish forgetfulness of the poor old woman far away. Repentant tears
had fallen on the humble memento.

On the morning of the day when Possessionaten Bilberg and his daughter
were expected, the curate's wife went with Karin to the inn.

The parting between them was full of grateful expression on the one
side, and of tender interest and kind advice on the other. They were
never to m