ing. Now summer comes for the
first time--all calm and warmth and happiness. I have been like a
fairy palace, with a splendid hall to which none could find the key.
But you had it all the time--the others could enter this little room
or that, but only you had the key to the best of all."

"Is it really true, Olof? Oh, I shall remember those words for ever!"

"It is true--you were the first that taught me how deep and
mysterious, how wonderful, the love of a man and a woman can be.
That it is not just a chance meeting, and after that all kisses and
embraces and overflow of feeling. But a quiet, calm happiness in the
blood, like the sap in the trees, invisible, yet bearing all life in
itself; speechless, yet saying everything without a single touch of
our lips."

"Yes," said the girl earnestly. "But did you not know that before? I
have always felt it so."

"No--I did not realise that it was so intimate a part of our nature;
that it was the foundation of life and happiness for all on earth. Now
at last I understand that we are nothing without one another--we are
as earth without water, trees without roots or mould; or as the
sky without sun and moon. And I know now much that I did not know
before--the secret of all existence, the power that sustains us all."

"And you know that it is _love_--the greatest of all! But why does no
one ever speak of it--I mean, of love itself, not merely the name?"

"I think it must be because it is too deep and sacred a thing to talk
about; we do not understand it ever until we have experienced it each
for himself. And those that have--they must be silent--for it is
a thing to live on, not to talk about. Do you know, I have just
remembered something I once saw. Just a scene in a poor little
hut--but it explains it all...."

"Something you have seen yourself?"

"Yes. It was many years ago. It was a cold winter day, and I came to
this hut I was speaking of--'twas a miserable place to look at. The
windows were covered with frost, and an icy draught came through
cracks in the walls. Two children were sitting by the stove, warming
their feet that were all red with cold; the other two were quarrelling
over the last crust of bread."

"Were they so poor as that?" asked the girl, her voice quivering with
sympathy.

"Poor as could be. And in a heap of rags on the bed lay the mother,
with a newborn child--the fifth. The man was sitting at the table. He
looked at the children on the floor, a