side upon a fiery horse, ride, fight, and at
last--fall, with you. After a hero's life--a hero's death!"

She started up; her gray-blue eyes flashed with a wonderful light, and
tossing back her waving hair she raised both arms enthusiastically.

Her husband gently drew her down again. "My high-hearted wife, my
Hilda," he said, smiling, "with the instinct of a seer your ancestor
chose for you the name of the glorious leader of the Valkyries. How
much I owe old Hildebrand, the master at arms of the great King of the
Goths! With the name the nature came to you. And his training and
teaching probably did the rest."

Hilda nodded. "I scarcely knew my parents, they died so young. Ever
since I could remember I was under the charge and protection of the
white-bearded hero. In the palace at Ravenna he locked me in his
apartments, keeping me jealously away from the pious Sisters, the nuns,
and from the priests who educated my playmates,--among them the
beautiful Mataswintha. I grew up with his other foster-child,
dark-haired Teja. My friend Teja taught me to play the harp, but also
to hurl spears and catch them on the shield. Later, when the king, and
still more his daughter, the learned Amalaswintha, insisted that I must
study with the women and the priests, how sullenly,"--she smiled at the
remembrance,--"how angrily the old great-grandfather questioned me in
the evening about what the nuns had taught me during the day! If I had
recited the proverbs and Latin hymns, the _Deus pater ingenite_ or
_Salve sancta parens_ by Sedulius--I scarcely knew more than the
beginning!"--she laughed merrily--"he shook his massive head, muttered
something in his long white beard, and cried: 'Come, Hilda! Let's get
out of doors. Come on the sea. There I will tell you about the ancient
gods and heroes of our people.' Then he took me far, far from the
crowded harbors into the solitude of a desolate, savage island, where
the gulls circled and the wild swan built her nest amid the rushes;
there we sat down on the sand, and, while the foaming waves rolled
close to our feet, he told me tales of the past. And what tales old
Hildebrand could tell! My eyes rested intently on his lips as, with my
elbows propped on his knee, I gazed into his face. How his sea-gray
eyes sparkled! how his white hair fluttered in the evening breeze! His
voice trembled with enthusiasm; he no longer knew where he was; he saw
everything he related, or often--in disconnected wo