The night was very still,--only now and then something shrieked and howled with a long, wailing cry. "What is that?" asked Arne. "It is the weather-vane," said Eli; and afterwards she continued more softly, as though to herself: "It must have been let loose." But Arne had been feeling like one who wanted to speak and could not. Now he said:-- "Do you remember the story about the thrushes that sang?" "Yes." "Why, to be sure, it was you who told that one! It was a pretty story." She said, in so gentle a voice that it seemed as though it were the first time he heard it,-- "I often think there is something that sings when it is quite still." "That is the good within ourselves." She looked at him as though there were something too much in that answer; they were both quiet afterward. Then she asked, as she traced figures with one finger on the window-pane,-- "Have you made any songs lately?" He blushed; but this she did not see. Therefore she asked again,-- "How do you manage when you make songs?" "Would you really like to know?" "Oh, yes." "I hoard up the thoughts that others are in the habit of letting go," he answered evasively. She was long silent, for she had doubtless been making an attempt at a song or two. What if she had had those thoughts and let them go. "That is strange," said she, as though to herself, and fell to tracing figures on the pane again. "I made a song after I had seen you the first time." "Where was that?" "Over by the parsonage, the evening you left there. I saw you in the lake." She laughed, then was still a while. "Let me hear that song." Arne had never before done such a thing, but now he sang for her the song,-- "Fair Venevill bounded on lithesome feet, Her lover to meet," etc. Eli stood there very attentive; she stood there long after he was through. At last she burst out,-- "Oh, how I pity her!" "It seems as though I had not made it myself," said Arne, for he felt ashamed at having produced it. Nor did he understand how he had come to do so. He remained standing there as if looking after the song. Then she said: "But I hope it will not be that way with me!" "No, no, no! I was only thinking of myself." "Is that to be your fate, then?" "I do not know; but I felt so at that time--indeed, I do not understand it now, but I once had such a heavy heart." "That was strange." She began to write on the window-pane again. The next day, when Arne came in to dinner he went over to the window. Outside it was gray and foggy, within warm and pleasant; but on the window-pane a finger had traced "Arne, Arne, Arne!" and over again "Arne." It was the window where Eli had stood the preceding evening. But Eli did not come down-stairs that day; she was feeling ill. She had not been well at all of late; she had said so herself, and it was plainly to be seen. CHAPTER XI.