arge blazing stars,
larger and brighter than she had ever seen them in the North, and yet
the same. She was thinking upon the Viking's wife near "the wild
morass"--upon her foster-mother's mild eyes--upon the tears she had
shed over the poor frog-child, who was now standing under the light of
the glorious stars, on the banks of the Nile, in the soft spring air.
She thought of the love in the heathen woman's breast--the love she
had shown towards an unfortunate being, who in human form was as
vicious as a wild beast, and in the form of a noxious animal was
horrible to look upon or to touch. She gazed at the glittering stars,
and thought of the shining circle on the brow of the dead priest, when
they flew over the forest and the morass. Tones seemed again to sound
on her ears--words she had heard spoken when they rode together, and
she sat like an evil spirit there--words about the great source of
love, the highest love, that which included all races and all
generations. Yes, what was not bestowed, won, obtained? Helga's
thoughts embraced by day, by night, the whole of her good fortune;
she stood contemplating it like a child who turns precipitately from
the giver to the beautiful gifts; she passed on to the increasing
happiness which might come, and would come. Higher and higher rose her
thoughts, till she so lost herself in the dreams of future bliss that
she forgot the Giver of all good. It was the superabundance of
youthful spirits which caused her imagination to take so bold a
flight. Her eyes were flashing with her thoughts, when suddenly a loud
noise in the court beneath recalled her to mundane objects. She saw
there two enormous ostriches running angrily round in a narrow circle.
She had never before seen these large heavy birds, who looked as if
their wings were clipped; and when she asked what had happened to
them, she heard for the first time the Egyptian legend about the
ostrich.

Its race had once been beautiful, its wings broad and strong. Then one
evening the largest forest birds said to it, "Brother, shall we fly
to-morrow, God willing, to the river, and drink?" And the ostrich
answered, "Yes, I will." At dawn they flew away, first up towards the
sun, higher and higher, the ostrich far before the others. It flew on
in its pride up towards the light; it relied upon its own strength,
not upon the Giver of that strength; it did not say, "God willing."
Then the avenging angel drew aside the veil from the stre