blessed her for all the care and
kindness which she, in the days of distress and trial, had lavished
upon her; thanked her for the thoughts with which she had inspired
her mind--thanked her for mentioning _that name_ which she now
repeated, "Immaculate Christ!" and then lifting herself up in the
suddenly adopted shape of a graceful swan, little Helga spread her
wings widely out with the rustling sound of a flock of birds of
passage on the wing, and in another moment she was gone.

The Viking's wife awoke, and on the outside of her casement were to be
heard the same rustling and flapping of wings. It was the time, she
knew, when the storks generally took their departure; it was them she
heard. She wished to see them once more before their journey to the
south, and bid them farewell. She got up, went out on the balcony, and
then she saw, on the roof of an adjoining outhouse, stork upon stork,
while all around the place, above the highest trees, flew crowds of
them, wheeling in large circles; but below, on the brink of the well,
where little Helga had but so lately often sat, and frightened her
with her wild actions, sat now two swans, looking up at her with
expressive eyes; and she remembered her dream, which seemed to her
almost a reality. She thought of Helga in the appearance of a swan;
she thought of the Christian priest, and felt a strange gladness in
her heart.

The swans fluttered their wings and bowed their necks, as if they were
saluting her; and the Viking's wife opened her arms, as if she
understood them, and smiled amidst her tears and manifold thoughts.

Then, with a clattering of bills and a noise of wings, the storks all
turned towards the south to commence their long journey.

"We will not wait any longer for the swans," said the stork-mother.
"If they choose to go with us, they must come at once; we cannot be
lingering here till the plovers begin their flight. It is pleasant to
travel as we do in a family party, not like the chaffinches and
strutting cocks. Among their species the males fly by themselves, and
the females by themselves: that, to say the least of it, is not at all
seemly. What a miserable sound the stroke of the swans' wings has
compared with ours!"

"Every one flies in his own way," said the stork-father. "Swans fly
slantingly, cranes in triangles, and plovers in serpentine windings."

"Name not serpents or snakes when we are about to fly up yonder," said
the stork-mother. "It will