Wilhelm fixed his eyes on the floor in silence for some seconds. Then he said:—
"Miss Margaret, that you are content, are glad, is joy to Karl and to us. So long as you find to be content, glad in our house, it is great joy. When you are more glad in your own house that will be greatest joy to Karl, to us. There will come the year when Karl will have wife and house as I. He has the great father heart which must have the children to love. You will do his life no harm. To have seen that you are God's angel shall be only light to him, not cloud. I know my Karl. Oh, Miss Margaret, will you not for one month try if it cannot be?"
So Margaret promised to stay. The first meeting with Karl was what she most dreaded; but it was over almost before she knew that it was near, and Karl's beautiful simplicity of nature made it easier than could have been foreseen.
He was standing alone in the window of the drawing-room when she went to breakfast the next morning. He had just broken a beautiful tea-rose from its stem, and was about to lay it on her plate. As she crossed the threshold he went towards her, holding it out, and saying:—
"You are like a new guest in our house to-day. Oh, Miss Margaret, let the rose tell to you how we all thank God that you have come."
The tone, the look, were calmly, gravely, affectionate as ever. The old life was taken up again,
