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Emilie vaguely and amazedly realized that to the child the importanceof the moment did not lie with his own good luck, but with thattremendous happiness and fulfilment which he was bestowing on her. Astrange idea, that she could not have explained to herself, at that,ran through her mind, she thought: "This child is as lonely in life asI. " Gravely she moved nearer to him and said a few kindly words.

The little boy put out his hand and gently touched the long silky ringlets that fell forward over her neck. "I knew you at once," he said proudly, "you are my Mamma, who spoils me. I would know you amongst all the ladies, by your long, pretty hair. " He ran his fingers softly down her shoulder and arm and fumbled over her gloved hand. "You have got three rings on today," he said.

"Yes," said Emilie in her low voice.

A short, triumphant smile broke his face. "And now you kiss me, Mamma!" he said, and then grew very pale. Emilie did not know that his excitement rose from the fact that he had never been kissed. Obediently, surprised at herself, she bent down and kissed him.

Jens’s farewell to Madam Mahler at first was somewhat ceremonious fortwo people who had known each other a long time. For she already sawhim as a new person, the rich man’s child, and took his hand formally,with a stiff face. But Emilie bade the boy, before he went away, tothank Madam Mahler because she had looked after him till now, and hedid so with much freedom and grace. At that, the old woman’s tannedand furrowed cheeks once more blushed deeply, like a young girl’s, asby the sight of the money at their first meeting,—she had so rarelybeen thanked in her life.

In the street he stood still. "Look at my big fat horses!" he cried.

Emilie sat in the carriage, bewildered. What was she bringing home with her from Madam Mahler’s house?

In her own house, as she took the child up the stairs and from one room into another, her bewilderment grew, rarely had she felt so uncertain of herself. It was, everywhere, in the child, the same rapture of recognition—at times he would also mention and look for things which she did faintly remember from her own childhood, or other things of which she had never heard. Her small pug, that she had brought with her from her old home, yapped at the boy, she lifted it up, afraid that it would bite him.

"No, Mamma," he cried, "she will not bite me, she knows me well. "

A few hours ago—yes, she thought, up to the moment in Madam Mahler’sroom she had kissed the child—she would have scolded him: "Fye, youare telling a fib. " Now she said nothing, and the next moment thechild looked round the room and asked her: "Is the parrot dead?"

"No," she answered wondering, "she is not dead, she is in the other room. "

She realized that she was afraid both to be alone with the boy and tolet any third person join them. She sent the nurse out of the room. Bythe time when Jakob was to arrive at the house, she listened for hissteps on the stair with a kind of alarm.

"Who are you waiting for?" Jens asked her.

She was at a loss how to designat
e Jakob to the child. "For my husband," she replied, embarrassed.

Jakob on his entrance found the mother and the child gazing into thesame picture book.

The little boy stared at him. "So it is you, who is my Papa!" he exclaimed. "I thought so, too, all the time. But I could not be quite sure of it, could I? It was not by the smell that you found me, then. I think it was the horse that remembered me. "