Will you give me a chance ?" Olaf Gueldmar smiled gravely, and rising from his seat, pointed to the western sky.
"See yonder threads of filmy white," he said, "that stretch across the wide expanse of blue! They are the lingering, fading marks of light clouds,--and even while we watch them, they shall pass and be no more.
Such is the emblem of your life, young man--you that would, for an idle jest or pastime, presume to search into the mysteries of Odin! For you they are not,--your spirit is not of the stern mould that waits for death as gladly as the bridegroom waits for the bride! The Christian heaven is an abode for girls and babes,--Valhalla is the place for men! I tell you, my creed is as divine in its origin as any that ever existed on the earth! The Rainbow Bridge is a fairer pathway from death to life than the doleful Cross,--and better far the dark summoning eyes of a beauteous Valkyrie, than the grinning skull and cross-bones, the Christian emblem of mortality.

Thelma thinks,--and her mother before her thought also,--that different as my way of belief is to the accepted new creeds of to-day, it will be all right with me in the next world--that I shall have as good a place in heaven as any Christian.

It may be so,--I care not! But see you,--the key-note of all the civilization of to-day is discontent, while I,--thanks to the gods of my fathers, am happy, and desire nothing that I have not." He paused and seemed absorbed.

The young men watched his fine inspired features with lively interest.

Thelma's head was turned away from them so that her face was hidden.