Part 16

Then he raised her amidst splendour and magnificence, and a stream of delicious music. It was not around her only that all seemed to be brightness and music, but the light seemed to stream in her soul, and the sweet tones to be echoed there. Words cannot describe what she felt.

"We must now return," he said; "thou wilt be missed."

"Only one more glance!" she entreated. "Only one short minute!"

"We must return to earth--the guests are all departing."

"But one more glance--the last!"

And Helga stood again in the verandah, but all the torches outside were extinguished; all the light in the bridal saloon was gone; the storks were gone; no guests were to be seen--no bridegroom. All had vanished in these three short minutes.

Then Helga felt anxious. She wandered through the vast empty halls--there slept foreign soldiers. She opened the side door which led to her own chambers, and, as she fancied she was entering them, she found herself in the garden: it had not stood there. Red streaks crossed the skies; it was the dawn of day.

Only three minutes in heaven, and a whole night on earth had passed away.

Then she perceived the storks. She called to them, spoke their language, and the old stork turned his head towards her, listened, and drew near.

"Thou dost speak our language," said he. "What wouldst thou? Whence comest thou, thou foreign maiden?"

"It is I--it is Helga! Dost thou not know me? Three minutes ago we were talking together in the verandah."

"That is a mistake," said the stork. "Thou must have dreamt this."

"No, no," she said, and reminded him of the Viking's castle, "the wild morass," the journey thence.

Then the old stork winked with his eyes.

"That is a very old story; I have heard it from my great, great-grandmother's time. Yes, truly there was once in Egypt a princess from the Danish land; but she disappeared on the evening of her wedding, many hundred years ago, and was never seen again. Thou canst read that thyself upon the monument in the garden, upon which are sculptured both swans and storks, and above it stands one like thyself in the white marble."

And so it was. Helga saw, comprehended it all, and sank on her knees.

The sun burst forth in all its morning splendour, and as, in former days, with its first rays fell the frog disguise, and the lovely form became visible; so now, in the baptism of light, arose a form of celestial beauty, purer than the air, as if in a veil of radiance to the Father above. The body sank into dust, and where she had stood lay a faded lotus flower!

* * * * *

"Well, this is a new finale to the story," said the stork-father, "which I by no means expected; but I am quite satisfied with it."

"I wonder what the young ones will say to it?" replied the stork-mother.

"Ah! that, indeed, is of the most consequence," said the stork-father.

The Quickest Runners.

There was a large reward offered--indeed, there were two rewards offered, a larger and a lesser one--for the greatest speed, not in one race alone, but to such as had got on fastest throughout the year.

"I got the highest prize," said the hare. "One had a right to expect justice when one's own family and best friends were in the council; but that the snail should have got the second prize I consider as almost an insult to me."

"No," observed the wooden fence, which had been a witness to the distribution of the prizes; "you must take diligence and good will into consideration. That remark was made by several very estimable persons, and that was also my opinion. To be sure the snail took half a year to cross the threshold; but he broke his thigh-bone in the tremendous exertion which that was for him. He devoted himself entirely to this race; and, moreover, he ran with his house on his back. All these weighed in his favour, and so he obtained the second prize."

"I think my claims might also have been taken into consideration," said the swallow. "More speedy than I, in flight and motion, I believe no one has shown himself. And where have I not been? Far, far away!"

"And that is just your misfortune," said the wooden fence. "You gad about too much. You are always on the wing, ready to start out of the country when it begins to freeze. You have no love for your fatherland. You cannot claim any consideration in it."

"But if I were to sleep all the winter through on the moor," inquired the swallow--"sleep my whole time away--should I be thus entitled to be taken into consideration?"