ntention of asking him his
meaning, or of reproaching him for her two years of pining. Besides, all
that was past, ay, and forgotten now; in one single moment everything
seemed carried away before the delightful whirlwind that swept over her
life!

Still speechless, she told him of her great love and adoration for him
by her sweet brimming eyes alone; she looked deeply and steadily at him,
while the copious shower of happy tears poured adown her roseate cheeks.

"Well done! and God bless you, my children," said Granny Moan. "It's
thankful I be to Him, too, for I'm glad to have been let grow so old to
see this happy thing afore I go."

Still there they remained, standing before one another with clasped
hands, finding no words to utter; knowing of no word sweet enough, and
no sentence worthy to break that exquisite silence.

"Why don't ye kiss one another, my children? Lor'! but they're dumb!
Dear me, what strange grandchildren I have here! Pluck up, Gaud; say
some'at to him, my dear. In my time lovers kissed when they plighted
their troth."

Yann raised his hat, as if suddenly seized with a vast, heretofore
unfelt reverence, before bending down to kiss Gaud. It seemed to him
that this was the first kiss worthy of the name he ever had given in his
life.

She kissed him also, pressing her fresh lips, unused to refinements of
caresses, with her whole heart, to his sea-bronzed cheek.

Among the stones the cricket sang of happiness, being right for this
time. And Sylvestre's pitiful insignificant portrait seemed to smile
on them out of its black frame. All things, in fact, seemed suddenly to
throb with life and with joy in the blighted cottage. The very silence
apparently burst into exquisite music; and the pale winter twilight,
creeping in at the narrow window, became a wonderful, unearthly glow.

"So we'll go to the wedding when the Icelanders return; eh, my dear
children?"

Gaud hung her head. "Iceland," the "_Leopoldine_"--so it was all real!
while she had already forgotten the existence of those terrible things
that arose in their way.

"When the Icelanders return."

How long that anxious summer waiting would seem!

Yann drummed on the floor with his foot feverishly and rapidly. He
seemed to be in a great hurry to be off and back, and was telling the
days to know if, without losing time, they would be able to get married
before his sailing. So many days to get the official papers filled and
signed; so man