where everybody was asleep.  When she finally entered the house, everything seemed so much more strange to her than it had outside—­so odd, so out of keeping, so out of place.  “Why do you come home?  What do you want here?” There seemed to be a strange questioning in every sound; when the dog barked, when the stairs creaked, when the cows lowed in the stable—­they all seemed to be questioning her:  “Who’s that coming home?  Who’s that?” And when at length she found herself in her room, she sat down quietly and stared at the light.  Suddenly she got up, seized the lamp, held it up to the glass, and looked at her face; she felt inclined to ask herself:  “Who’s that?”—­“And thus,” she thought, “he saw me—­this is how I looked.  He must have been pleased with something about you, or else why did he look at you so?”

There arose in her a quiet feeling of contentment, which was heightened by the thought: 

“Well, for once you have been looked upon as a person; until now you have been nothing but a servant, a convenience for others.  Good night, Amrei—­this has been a day indeed!  But even this day must come to an end at last.”

CHAPTER XI

WHAT THE OLD SONG SAYS

[The memory of the handsome stranger, and of the dance, and of all the new and wonderful emotions that had filled her heart on that eventful day, to Amrei was a sacred one indeed; for weeks she thought of it by day and dreamed of it by night.  The jealous, sneering remarks of Rose, and the half-serious, half-jesting utterances of other people, who had been present at the wedding, meant nothing to her; she went about her work all the more diligently and ignored it all.  Black Marianne could offer her no encouragement in her hope that the stranger would some day appear again and claim her; she had waited all her life for her John, and would continue to wait until she died.]

Spring had come again.  Amrei was standing beside the flowers in her window when a bee came flying up and began sucking at an open blossom.

“Yes, so it is,” thought Barefoot; “a girl is like a plant; she grows up in one place, and cannot go out into the world and seek—­she must wait until something comes flying to her.”

  “Were I a little bird,
  And had a pair of wings,
      I’d fly to thee;
  But since I can’t do that,
      Here must I be.

  Though I am far from thee,
  In dreams I am with thee,
      Thou art mine own;
  But when I wake again,
      I am alone.

  No hour at night doth pass,
  But that my heart doth wake,
      And think of thee,—­”

Thus sang Amrei.  It was wonderful how all songs seemed now to apply to her own life.  And how many thousands of people have already sung those songs from the depths of their souls, and how many thousands more are yet to sing them!

Ye who yearn and who at last embrace a heart, ye embrace along with it the love of all those who have ever been, or who ever shall be.