terness of her memory even
from the heart of Esbern Lynge."

At the name, proudly laughed the elder sister, "Take thy husband, and be
happy, girl; I envy thee not; I am the wife of the great Hill-king."

"And does thy lord love thee? Does he sit beside thee at eve, and let
thee lean thy tired head on his breast, as Esbern does with me? And hast
thou young children dancing about thy feet, and a little blue-eyed one
to creep dove-like to thy heart at nights, as mine does? Say, dear
sister, art thou as happy as I?"

Hyldreda paused. Earth's sweet ties arose before her, and the grandeur
of her lot seemed only loneliness. Forgetting her lord's command, she
sighed, she even wept one regretful tear; and that moment in her
presence stood Kong Tolv.

"Kill me, but save my mother, my sister," cried the wife, with a broken
heart. The prayer was needless; _they_ saw not the Elle-king, and he
marked not them--he only bore away Hyldreda, singing mockingly in her
ear something of the same rhyme which had bound her his:

"Complainest thou here all drearily--
Camest thou not of thyself in the hill to me?
And stayest thou here thy lot to deplore?
Camest thou not of thyself in at my door?"

When the mother and sister of Hyldreda lifted up their eyes, they saw
nothing but a cloud of dust sweeping past the cottage-door, they heard
nothing but the ancient elder-tree howling aloud as its branches were
tossed about in a gust of wintry wind.

* * * * *

Kong Tolv took back to the hill his mortal bride. There he set her in a
golden chair, and brought to her to drink a silver horn of elfin-wine,
in the which he had dropped an ear of wheat. At the first draught, she
forgot the village where she had dwelt--at the second, she forgot the
sister who had been her darling--at the third, she forgot the mother who
bore her. Again she rejoiced in the glories of the fairy-palace, and in
the life of never-ceasing pleasure.

Month after month rolled by--by her scarce counted, or counted only in
jest, as she would number a handful of roses, all held so fast and sure,
that none could fall or fade; or as she would mark one by one the little
waves of a rivulet whose source was eternally flowing.

Hyldreda thought no more of any earthly thing, until there came, added
to her own, a young, new life. When her beautiful babe, half-elf,
half-mortal, nestled in her woman's breast, it wakened there the
fountain