.

but one day she will go never to come back." He dropped his voice to a mysterious whisper.

"Last night I saw a little spirit come out of a rose,--he carried a tiny golden hammer and nail, and a ball of cord like a rolled-up sunbeam.

He flew away so quickly I could not follow him; but I know where he went! He fastened the nail in the heart of Thelma, deeply, so that the little drops of blood flowed,--but she felt no pain; and then he tied the golden cord to the nail and left her, carrying the other end of the string with him--to whom?
Some other heart must be pierced! Whose heart ?" Sigurd looked infinitely cunning as well as melancholy, and sighed deeply.
The Reverend Mr.Dyceworthy was impatient and disgusted.
"It is a pity," he said with an air of solemn patience, "that this hapless creature, accursed of God and man, is not placed in some proper abode suitable to the treatment of his affliction.

You, Britta, as the favored servant of a--a--well, let us say, of a peculiar mistress, should persuade her to send this--this--person away, lest his vagaries become harmful." Britta glanced very kindly at Sigurd, who still held her apron with the air of a trustful child.
"He's no more harmful than you are," she said promptly, in answer to the minister's remark.