Karin unpacked her basket in a hurry. There were the preparations of the night before for the fire and the boiling of the water for the morning meal, to be simple indeed. Yet there was a packed basket, "the basket"

no doubt from the parsonage. She did not unpack it, though it seemed filled with food. She made some tea in haste, and took it with a biscuit to her mother's side. She put the cup on a chair near her, and sitting down on the edge of the bed, she lifted up the old woman, pa.s.sing one strong arm about the little body. There was gentleness and kindness in the touch. The old head was voluntarily drooped caressingly against the breast of her daughter; there was a long sigh, and Karin knew she was motherless. Repentant, sorrowing tears flowed fast. There was no opportunity left for reparation in this world. That loving last movement towards her was the only pleasant thought on which Karin could dwell.

How still it was in the cottage! The birches without scarcely quivered in the soft summer air, and not even the twitter of a bird was to be heard.

Karin had just gently laid the old head on the pillow, when a form, almost to her as of an angel, suddenly appeared at the door. It was the pastor's wife, her face beaming with the tender interest she was feeling for the lone dweller in the cottage. She understood the whole as she saw Karin's streaming tears, and the changed old face beside her.

"My mother is dead!" said Karin simply, but in a broken voice.

"I am glad she saw her good daughter before she died," said the pastor's wife comfortingly.

"I am no good daughter!" exclaimed Karin bitterly. It was a relief to confess her selfishness, her forgetfulness of her mother, in the midst of her own comfortable surroundings, and her cold willingness to believe that all was well with that old woman, who she had supposed was still in the far north.

The pastor's wife listened in silence. She had no words of comfort to say. Here was a case beyond her treatment. She did not kneel, but she clasped her hands and sat quite still, while she laid Karin's sorrow and penitence before the dear Lord Jesus, so ready to forgive, and to heal the broken, repentant heart. When she had closed the prayer with a fervent "Amen!" which seemed to be the sealing of her pet.i.tions to the One strong to save, she turned to Karin and said, "I will go down and send a person to watch her, and then you must go with me to our home; for I have heard that you were left at the inn. You cannot be there now." She felt that it would be best for Karin to be for a time alone.

She had brought her to the heavenly Presence, and she left her there to commune with the pitiful Father in heaven.

CHAPTER V.

KARIN AND ELSA.

There was a new, low mound in the churchyard. Kind young hands from the curate's had covered it with evergreen boughs, and sprinkled among them bright flowers, so that it seemed but a slight swell in the green sweep around it dotted with daisies.

Karin had begun a new phase in her life. She had something to love and respect which had no taint of this present world and the worldliness reigning therein. She had entered humbly and heartily into the simple life at the curate's home, where she had been so lovingly welcomed.

That thin man, with the angular, loosely-built figure, with a speaking expression of poverty about it; that man whose shabby Sunday coat had not a b.u.t.ton-hole that did not publicly tell of privately-done repairs by his wife's untailor-like hand; that man whose very hair was scanty, and was changing colour--she looked up to him as if he had been a prince. And so he was; for he had a Father who was King over all the nations of the earth, who loved him as a son, and received from that son the happy, truthful affection of a true child.

That woman who went about in the simplest of garments, and shunned no form of labour that made the home more comfortable or attractive, had become to Karin a model of all that was pure and lovely and lovable. The baby, who fell much to her care, seemed to have a healing influence on her wounded, humbled, penitent heart. It had for her its artless smile, and its little arms went out to her as trustfully as if she had never strayed from the narrow path. Karin had a new standard in life, a new picture of what she wished to be, a new way of estimating her fellow-creatures.

Karin was glad that circ.u.mstances made it necessary for her to lay down in the depths of her capacious trunk the gay garments that had been her pride. There had been no dressmaking, no consulting of milliner or _modiste_. Like most Swedish girls, she had a black dress; she had but to put a c.r.a.pe band over her sailor-hat, and let the short c.r.a.pe veil fall over her solemnized face, and her mourning suit was for the present complete.

This time, this precious time, went away all too rapidly, but it swept from Karin the impressions of years, and strengthened in her, day by day, the new purposes and the new hopes that had sprung up in the midst of her humiliation and distress.

From the cottage in the woods the daughter had but taken away her mother's "psalm-book" in its close-fitting black cotton case, her worn Bible, and the carefully-folded white handkerchief that lay under them.

In the corner of the handkerchief a large K had been embroidered by unskilful hands. Karin knew it as one of her own early trophies, that had been given to her mother in pride when she had received it as a reward for skill shown in the sewing-cla.s.s at school. This little remembrance of her had been treasured and prized while she was living in selfish forgetfulness of the poor old woman far away. Repentant tears had fallen on the humble memento.

On the morning of the day when Possessionaten Bilberg and his daughter were expected, the curate's wife went with Karin to the inn.

The parting between them was full of grateful expression on the one side, and of tender interest and kind advice on the other. They were never to meet again on earth, but they had a common Father in heaven above, in whose presence they trusted one day to be united.

Karin was, of course, on the steps of the inn to receive her charge. It was not unusual for Karin to wear sometimes a black dress, and Elsa, in her pleasure at the meeting and her eagerness to tell her late experiences, did not notice anything particularly serious in the face of the maid. When, however, they were alone together, she looked up suddenly, and saw that Karin's eyes were full of tears as she was struggling to speak of what had befallen her.

"What is it? what is the matter?" asked Elsa affrightedly.

"My mother is dead! I have lost my mother!" said Karin simply.

Elsa cast her arms around Karin's neck in an unusual fit of demonstrative affection, and wept with her. "O Karin, what will you do?

How you must have loved her! How sorry you must be! I have thought a great deal about a mother since I have been away. I have always missed something, and felt that I was different from other little girls, but I did not really understand what it was. I have had everything I wanted, and papa has been so kind, and you too, Karin, but there was something.

Where I have been the children did so love their mamma, and she made it so charming for them, and she had such a sweet way with them;" and here the little girl sobbed, more, it must be owned, from thinking of what she had missed in her life than from sympathy for Karin, and yet they were drawn nearer together than ever before.

The stir of the arrival of Possessionaten Bilberg and his daughter had pa.s.sed away from about the inn, and stillness reigned around on every side, on the wide meadows in front, and on the long, low, rocky ridge beyond them. Possessionaten Bilberg was smoking a cigar in the wide porch, and quietly thinking. Elsa had flown down to tell him of Karin's trouble, and now he greeted the trusted maid almost with respect as she came to him to ask some questions about their approaching departure.

He got up stiffly and took Karin by the hand, as he said simply, "I am sorry to hear that you have had trouble. Your mother was old, I daresay," he added, as he dropped her hand.

"Yes, old and feeble," was the reply.

Karin waited a moment, and then began to speak of the journey.

"Yes; it will be this evening," he said, and his face wore a most peculiar expression, as if some struggle was going on within him.

At last he began: "I have had time to see more of Elsa than usual, and when she was with young companions. There is something about her as if her pleasure were the most important thing to everybody, and she rather thought n.o.body was quite equal to herself."

It is possible that these peculiarities had become Elsa's by inheritance, as her father was not without his own tendencies in that direction--a fact of which he was naturally unconscious.

He went on: "You have been a good girl, Karin, and I am pleased with you. Elsa needs now some one who has a right to take her more steadily in hand."

There was a pause, and the tears sprang to Karin's eyes. Was she to be dismissed, when she felt almost as much at home in her master's house as his daughter herself?

"Yes, you have been a good girl, Karin, and you deserve your reward. You never ought to leave my home. What Elsa needs, though, is a mother's care. She needs one who with a mother's name will have a strong right to her respect and her affection."

He paused a moment. Karin, not knowing what else to do, dropped a courtesy, and waited for him to go on. He got up, blushed, took a few steps on the piazza, and then turned and said abruptly: "I am going to be married, and I want you to tell Elsa about it. Tell her that it is the lady whom the children called 'aunty' there in the country--their mother's sister. She is willing to marry me. I never thought to get such a good wife." And Possessionaten Bilberg looked humble, for perhaps the first time in his life.

"She is not like me in many things," he continued, as if pleased with his subject. "She is pious--something I don't quite understand, but it makes me sure she will be a good mother to Elsa. I really believe she would hardly have taken me if she had not longed to get my child under her care," said Possessionaten, with another unwonted attack of humility. "Please tell Elsa at once," he said, and sat down again, to indicate that the interview was over.

In a few moments Elsa came flying along the piazza, and surprised her father by taking a seat on his knee and putting her arms round his neck. "Papa! papa!" she said, "how could you think of doing anything that would please me so much?"

"Your own mother loved her, Elsa, and so I am sure she is the right kind of a woman, and that you will be happy together."

Possessionaten had spoken in a matter-of-fact sort of way, and Elsa went upstairs in a less ecstatic mood than when she came down, and told Karin calmly that her father seemed pleased that she liked having a new mother.

CHAPTER VI.

CHRISTMAS EVE.

Christmas Eve had come. There had been joy in the curate's home--carols and prayer around the lighted tree, the distribution of simple gifts, and the consumption of any amount of rice porridge. Even the grave pastor had grown playful as the evening went on. This had prompted one of the boys to exclaim that he was the very best father in the world--a comprehensive a.s.sertion that was approved by all parties present. The power to cast off care and even serious thought for a time, and frolic with children, was one of the secrets of the curate's personal power. In his sacred capacity he was above and apart from all; as a father or a friend he was near and familiarly dear to all, even to the youngest in his household and the humblest of his people.

Now he gave a start, and there was a look of astonishment all round the family as there was the sound of heavy cart-wheels grinding along over the sand under the parsonage windows.

In another moment there was a steady tramping on the side steps, then through the pa.s.sage to the dining-room, where the family were a.s.sembled.

Four strong men were bearing a huge box, and now entered, much embarra.s.sed at being unable to take off their caps in the presence of the pastor, but their deep voices p.r.o.nounced a "Good Yule!" and their thick, soft caps went off in a hurry when they had deposited their heavy burden. "We were to open it, pastor," they said, and they forthwith produced their tools from the slouching pockets of their strong coats.

The pastor's wife disappeared instantly, thinking, as usual, of others more than of herself; for she, too, would have liked a peep into the box when the thick boards had been thrown up and the packed stores were first visible. She had, however, what pleased her better--some hot coffee, a cake of saffron bread, and the remains of the porridge on the table in the kitchen when the last nail had been drawn out. The men disappeared, grinning with satisfaction; while the wondering children superintended, with occasional wild dances and leaps of delight, the unfolding of the secrets of the wonderful box.