“We want you to say us Bjornsen’s poem, Sigrid, in which the refrain is, ‘To-day is just a day to my mind.’ I can’t remember anything but the chorus.” “But it is rather a horrid little poem,” said Sigrid, hesitating. “Oh, let us have it, please let us have it,” said Blanche, joining them. “You have made me curious now.” So Sigrid, not liking to refuse, repeated first the poem itself and then the English translation: “The fox lay under the birch-tree’s root Beside the heather; And the hare bounded with lightsome foot Over the heather; ‘To-day is just a day to my mind, All sunny before and sunny behind Over the heather!’ And the fox laughed under the birch-tree’s root Beside the heather; And the hare frolicked with heedless foot Over the heather; ‘I am so glad about everything!’ ‘So that is the way you dance and spring Over the heather!’ And the fox lay in wait by the birch-tree’s root Beside the heather; And the hare soon tumbled close to his foot Over the heather; ‘Why, bless me! is that _you_, my dear! However did you come dancing here Over the heather?’” “I had forgotten that it ended so tragically,” said Frithiof, with a slight shrug of the shoulders. “Well, never mind, it is only a poem; let us leave melancholy to poets and novelists, and enjoy real life.” Just then a polka was struck up and he hastily made his bow to Blanche. “And yet one needs a touch of tragedy in real life,” she observed, “or it becomes so dreadfully prosaic.” “Oh,” said Frithiof, laughing, as he bore her off; “then for Heaven’s sake let us be prosaic to the end of the chapter.” Cecil heard the words, they seemed to her to fit in uncannily with the words of the poem; she could not have explained, and she did not try to analyze the little thrill of pain that shot through her heart at the idea. Neither could she have justified to herself the shuddering repulsion she felt when Cyril Morgan drew near, intercepting her view of Frithiof and Blanche. “May I have the pleasure of this dance?” he said, in his condescending tone. “Thank you, but I am so tired,” she replied. “Too tired for any more to-night.” “Yes,” said Sigrid, glancing at her. “You look worn out. Munkeggen is a tiring climb. Let us come upstairs, it is high time that naughty little sister of mine was in bed.” “The reward of virtue,” said Cyril Morgan, rejoining his cousin Florence. “I have been polite to the little _bourgeoise_ and it has cost me nothing. It is always best in a place like this to be on good terms with every one. We shall never be likely to come across these people again, the acquaintance is not likely to bore us.”