The cloud on his brow was, however, but a little one, and it soon vanished in sunshine when he saw the flutter of feminine garments, and found that his wife and daughter were coming to meet him.
He leaped off his horse, kissed his favorite child on the brow, and cheerfully remarked to his wife, "We have capital weather for the harvest; the bailiff vows we never have had such a crop." "You are a fortunate man, Oscar," said the baroness, tenderly.
"Yes, ever since I brought you here, seventeen years ago," replied he, with a politeness that came from the heart.
"There are indeed seventeen years since then," cried his wife, "and they have flown by like a summer day.

We have been very happy, Oscar," said she, bending over his arm, and looking gratefully in his face.
"Been happy!" cried the baron; "why, so we still are, and I see not why we should not continue so." "Hush!" implored she.

"I often feel that so much sunshine can not last forever.

I desire, as it were, to fast and do penance, thus to propitiate the envy of fortune." "Come, come," was the good-humored reply; "fortune has given us a few rubs already: we have had our clouds, only this little hand has always conjured them away.

Why, have you not had plague enough with the servants, the pranks of the children, and sometimes with your tyrant too, that you should be wishing for more ?" "You dear tyrant!" cried the wife, "I owe all my happiness to you; and, after seventeen years, I am as proud as ever of my husband and my home.
When you brought me here, a poor maid of honor, with nothing but my trinket-box, and that a gift, I first learned the blessedness of being mistress in my own house, and obeying no other will than that of a beloved husband." "And yet you gave up much for me," returned the baron; "I have had many a fear lest our country life should seem petty and dull to you, a favorite at court." "There I obeyed, here I rule," said the baroness, laughing.