Eckbert was buried with great pomp, but no eyes shed tears at the ceremony save those of his mother and of the good forgiving Kuno. From this time Lady Von Allenstein turned the whole affection of her ennobled heart towards Kuno, who repaid her love with the most heartfelt gratitude; and no one who did not know their relationship would have thought, to see them together, that they were anything but mother and son. Winter and spring were past, and the warm summer weather had come. On a bright summer evening the horn of the watchman on the tower announced a troop of horsemen, and as they drew near with the sound of trumpets Kuno's sharp eye recognised in their floating banner his father's colours. He had long since recovered, but instead of returning to his castle he had once more offered his strong arm and brave heart in service to his imperial lord. The war was now ended, and the Earl, whom they had long counted dead, had returned, covered with scars and with honours, to clasp his beloved son in his arms. Lady Von Allenstein still lived in the castle, and presided over it as before, but she was served now from love and not from fear. When she died in a good old age, Kuno knelt at her side; her cold hand rested on his head, and her dying lips spoke words of love and blessing over her adopted son. The Flower of Iceland. [Illustration: HELGA AT HER MOTHER'S FEET.] A substantial farm-house stood many, many years ago on the slope of a hill in bleak and frozen Iceland. The owner, who had spent his youth as a sailor in distant climes, had at last obeyed his dying father's summons, and exchanged the palms and orange groves of southern lands for the feeble sunlight and cold lava-fields of his native island. But as a living souvenir of those happy regions he brought home a young and beautiful wife, whose dark and eloquent eyes still shone in the memory of all who had beheld them, long after they had been closed in the last sleep. "Marietta," her husband had said before the priest had joined their hands in marriage, "have you considered well what you are renouncing when you promise to follow me as my wife? Here in your country an eternal spring reigns, sweet with the fragrance of flowers and musical with the warbling of birds, while the Italian sky shines in never-fading blue. On my island you will find none of these things. A pale sun, a grey sky overhead, and all around barren heaths and ice--ice and snow wherever you look; none but the Icelander can think this island beautiful." "But you will be there," answered Marietta; "and could I wish for any home but yours?" So she had gone with him to the far north. They had one child, a lovely little girl, who bore the name of Helga; she must be a true daughter of Iceland, and to this even her name must witness. But her foreign descent was not to be hid; true, she had the fair skin and beautiful flaxen hair of a northern girl, but her eyes were as dark and mysterious as her mother's.