face. It was the captive Christian priest.
'White Christ!' she cried aloud; and as she mentioned that Name she pressed a kiss on the hideous forehead of her frog-child; the toad's skin fell off, and little Helga stood there in all her beauty, gentle as she had never been before, and with beaming eyes. She kissed her foster-mother's hands, blessed her for all her care and affection with which she had surrounded her in the days of her distress and trial; thanked her for the thoughts to which she had given birth in her; thanked her for mentioning the Name which she repeated, 'White Christ!' and then little Helga rose up as a noble swan, her wings expanded themselves wide, wide, with a rustling as when a flock of birds of passage flies away!
With that the Viking's wife awoke, and still heard outside the same strong sound of wings. She knew that it was time for the storks to depart, and no doubt that was what she heard. Still, she wished to see them once before their journey, and to bid them farewell. She stood up, went out on to the balcony, and there she saw on the ridge of the out-house rows of storks, and round the courtyard and over the lofty trees crowds of others were flying in great circles. But straight in front of her, on the edge of the well, where little Helga had so often sat and frightened her with her wildness, two swans now sat and looked at her with intelligent eyes. Her dream came to her mind; it still quite filled her as if it had been reality. She thought of little Helga in the form of a swan, she thought of the Christian priest, and she felt a strange joy in her heart.
The swans beat their wings, and bent their necks, as if they wished so to salute her; and the Viking's wife stretched out her arms towards them as if she understood, and smiled at them through her tears.
Then, with a noise of wings and chattering, all the storks arose to start on their journey to the south.
'We cannot wait for the swans!' said mother-stork. 'If they wish to come with us they may; but we can't wait here till the plovers start! It is a very good thing to travel in family parties; not like the chaffinches and ruffs, where the males fly by themselves and the females by themselves; that is certainly not proper! And what are those swans flapping their wings for?'
'Every one flies in his own way!' said father-stork. 'The swans go in slanting line, the cranes in a triangle, and the plovers in a wavy, snake-like line.'
'Don't mention serpents when we are flying up here!' said mother-stork; 'it only excites the appetites of our young ones when they can't be satisfied.'
******
'Are those the high mountains down there which I have heard of?' asked Helga in the swan's skin.
'Those are thunder-clouds which drive below us,' said the mother.
'What are those white clouds which lift themselves so high?' asked Helga.
'Those are the everlasting snow-clad hills which you see,' said the mother; and they flew over the Alps, down towards the blue Mediterranean.
******
'Land of Africa! Coast of Egypt!' jubilantly sang the daughter of the Nile in her swan form, when, high in the air, she descried her native land, like a yellowish white, undulating streak.
And as the birds saw it, they hastened their flight.
'I smell the mud of the Nile and the wet frogs!' said mother-stork. 'It quite excites me! Yes, now you shall taste them; now you shall see the adjutant bird, the ibis,
THEN SHE SAW THE STORKS
and the cranes! They all belong to our family, but they are not nearly so handsome as we are. They stick themselves up, especially the ibis; he is now quite pampered by the Egyptians—they make a mummy of him, and stuff him with aromatic herbs. I would rather be stuffed with live frogs, and so would you, and so you shall be. It is better to have something inside you while you live than to be in state when you are dead! That is my opinion, and that is always right!'
'Now the storks are come!' they said in the rich house on the bank of the Nile, where, in the open hall on soft cushions covered with a leopard's skin, the royal master lay outstretched, neither living nor dead, hoping for the lotus flower from the deep marsh in the north. Kinsmen and servants stood around him.
And into the hall flew two beautiful white swans, which had come with the storks! They threw off their dazzling feather-dress, and there stood two beautiful women, as much alike as two drops of dew! They bent down over the pale, withered old man; they put back their long hair, and when little Helga stooped over her grandfather, the colour returned to his cheeks, his eyes sparkled, and life came into his stiffened limbs. The old man raised himself healthy and vigorous; daughter and granddaughter held him in their arms as if they were giving him a morning salutation in their joy after a long, heavy dream.
******
And there was joy over all the house and in the storks' nest, but there it was chiefly over the good food, and the swarming hosts of frogs; and whilst the learned men made haste to note down in brief the history of the two princesses and the flower of health, which was such a great event and a blessing for house and country, the parent storks related it in their fashion to their own family, but not till they had all satisfied their hunger, or else they would have had something else to do than to listen to stories.
'Now you will become somebody!' whispered mother-stork; 'that is certain!'
'Well! what should I become?' said father-stork; 'and what have I done? A mere nothing!'
'You have done more than all the others! But for you and the young ones the two princesses would never have seen Egypt again, and made the old man well. You will become somebody! You will certainly receive a Doctor's degree, and our young ones will bear it afterwards, and their young ones will have it in turn. You look already like an Egyptian doctor—in my eyes!'
The wise and learned expounded the fundamental idea, as they called it, that ran through the whole history: 'Love brings forth life!'—they gave that explanation in different ways—'the warm sunbeam was the Egyptian princess, she descended to the Marsh King, and in their meeting the flower sprang forth—'
'I can't repeat the words quite right,' said father-stork, who had heard it from the roof, and was expected to tell them all about it in his nest. 'What they said was so involved, it was so clever, that they immediately received honours and gifts. Even the head cook obtained a high mark of distinction—that was for the soup!'
'And what did you receive?' inquired mother-stork; 'they ought not to forget the most important, and that is yourself. The learned have only chattered about it all, but your turn will come!'
Late that night, while peaceful slumber enwrapped the now prosperous house, there was one who was still awake; and that was not the father-stork, though he stood on one leg in the nest and slept like a sentinel. No, little Helga was awake. She leaned out over the balcony and gazed at the clear sky, with the great, bright stars, larger and purer in their lustre than she had seen them in the north, and yet the same. She thought of the Viking's wife by the moor, of her foster-mother's gentle eyes, and the tears she had shed over her poor toad-child, who now stood in the light and splendour of the stars by the waters of the Nile in the soft air of spring. She thought of the love in that heathen woman's breast, that love which she had shown to a miserable creature who, in human form, was an evil brute, and in the form of an animal, loathsome to look at and to touch. She looked at the shining
