If Carlen had spoken her thought at these words, she would have said, “Yes, it brings misery; but even so it is better than joy.”  But Carlen was ashamed; afraid also.  She had passed now into a new life, whither her brother, she perceived, could not follow.  She could barely reach his hand across the boundary line which parted them.

“I hope you will love some one, John,” she said.  “You would be happy with a wife.  You are old enough to have a home of your own.”

“Only a year older than you, my sister,” he rejoined.

“I too am old enough to have a home of my own,” she said, with a gentle dignity of tone, which more impressed John with a sense of the change in Carlen than all else which had been said.

It was time to return to the house.  As he had done when he was ten, and she nine, John stood at the bottom of the steepest rock, with upstretched arms, by the help of which Carlen leaped lightly down.

“We are not children any more,” she said, with a little laugh.

“More’s the pity!” said John, half lightly, half sadly, as they went on hand in hand.

When they reached the bars, Carlen paused.  Withdrawing her hand from John’s and laying it on his shoulder, she said:  “Brother, will you not try to find out what is Wilhelm’s grief?  Can you not try to be friends with him?”

John made no answer.  It was a hard thing to promise.

“For my sake, brother,” said the girl.  “I have spoken to no one else but you.  I would die before any one else should know; even my mother.”

John could not resist this.  “Yes,” he said; “I will try.  It will be hard; but I will try my best, Carlen.  I will have a talk with Wilhelm to-morrow.”

And the brother and sister parted, he only the sadder, she far happier, for their talk.  “To-morrow,” she thought, “I will know!  To-morrow! oh, to-morrow!” And she fell asleep more peacefully than had been her wont for many nights.

On the morrow it chanced that John and Wilhelm went separate ways to work and did not meet until noon.  In the afternoon Wilhelm was sent on an errand to a farm some five miles away, and thus the day passed without John’s having found any opportunity for the promised talk.  Carlen perceived with keen disappointment this frustration of his purpose, but comforted herself, thinking, with the swift forerunning trust of youth:  “To-morrow he will surely get a chance.  To-morrow he will have something to tell me.  To-morrow!”

When Wilhelm returned from this errand, he came singing up the road.  Carlen heard the voice and looked out of the window in amazement.  Never before had a note of singing been heard from Wilhelm’s voice.  She could not believe her ears; neither her eyes, when she saw him walking swiftly, almost running, erect, his head held straight, his eyes gazing free and confident before him.