“I don’t know very much about poetry, you know,” she added, laughing excitedly.  “If it’s about the things I like, I can’t help thinking it’s fine.  It’s just the same with music,—­if a man only makes it swift and strong, so that it leaps and flies and never tires, that is all I care about; and if he just keeps his trombones till the very last, he can carry me off my feet though he makes the worst noise that ever was!  It’s the same as a storm, you know, Arthur; do you remember how we used to go up on our hillside when the great wind was coming, and when everything was growing still and black; and how we used to watch the big clouds and the sheets of rain, and run for home when we heard the thunder?  Once when you were away, Arthur, I didn’t run, for I wanted to see what it was like; and I stayed up there and saw it all, singing the ‘Ride of the Valkyries,’ and pretending I was one of them and could gallop with the wind.  For the wind is fine, Arthur!  It fills you so full of its power that you stretch out your arms to it, and it makes you sing; and it comes, and it comes again, stronger than ever, and it sweeps you on, just like a great mass of music.  And then it howls through the trees and it flies over the valleys,—­that was what you were thinking of, weren’t you, Arthur?”

And Helen stopped, breathlessly, and gazed at him; her cheeks were flushed, and her hands still tightly clasped.

“Yes,” said Arthur, half mechanically, for he had lost himself in the girl’s enthusiasm, and felt the storm of his verses once more.

“Your poem made me think of that one time that was so gloriously,” Helen went on.  “For the rain was almost blinding, and I was drenched, but I did not even know it.  For oh, the thunder!  Arthur, you’ve no idea what thunder is like till you’re near it!  There fell one fearful bolt quite near me, a great white, living thing, as thick as a man’s body, and the crash of it seemed to split the air.  But oh, I didn’t mind it a bit!  ‘Der Sanger triumphirt in Wettern!’ I think I was a real Valkyrie that time, and I only wished that I might put it into music.”

The girl turned to the piano, and half in play struck a great rumbling chord, that rolled and echoed through the room; she sounded it once more, laughing aloud with glee.  Arthur had sunk down upon a chair beside her, and was bending forward, watching her with growing excitement.  For again and again Helen struck the keys with all the power of her arms, until they seemed to give forth real storm and thunder; and as she went on with her reckless play the mood grew upon her, and she lost herself in the vision of the Storm-King sweeping through the sky.  She poured out a great stream of his wild music, singing away to herself excitedly in the meantime.  And as the rush continued and the fierce music swelled louder, the phantasy took hold of the girl and carried her beyond herself.  She seemed to become the very demon of the storm, unbound and reckless; she