The young maiden arose and commenced her labor anew, but there was a different expression in her mild, innocent countenance; and other thoughts, which came to her like a revelation, filled her soul. The bridal feeling which now happified her, had acquired another phase, for which she knew not how to account. It was a deeper, more earnest feeling--distinguished from the former like the light of noon now lying on field and forest, from that of the morning. Those were the same bending grass-stems and the same swaying tree-tops. It was the same clear creek and they were the same waving rushes, and yet all was changed as by a gentle, mighty, magic hand, and spoke another speech--moving and dissolving in mystery. Now she understood why the beloved man, who was truth and openness itself, so anxiously concealed from her for weeks that she must live alone with him in his house. "Alone! Would it not have been the same had he told the truth? told me that he loved me? that he did not want me as a maid-servant? Would it not have come out just the same? Did I not also love him from the first moment on? and have I not followed him through peopled cities, through the pathless wilderness, on a journey of weeks, through rain and sunshine, day and night, in unknown regions? What is so different now? Did I not devote myself to him as we left the ship hand in hand? 'You shall be my lord!' And is it not said in the church when the minister lays the hands of lovers together: 'He shall be thy lord.' Yes, he shall be my lord, now and always. He shall be my lord." So spoke Catherine to herself to banish the occasional shudders that passed through her heart and often took away her breath, while she completed the arrangements in her room which had been temporarily made last evening, and put away her few belongings in a closet that had been contrived in the thick wall. Then, as there was nothing more to do here, she for the first time ascended the stairs to the upper story, and walked around the gallery which encircled the house and projected beyond the lower story, and was surrounded by well-joined planks and provided with port-holes. With the exception of a place poorly enough partitioned off in which the brothers had slept the previous night, the room, used in winter as a store-room, was empty, or served for the storage of that for which there was no room below. Catherine acquired a clearer notion of the plan, which she and Lambert had formed in the morning, to prepare a small, pleasant room for them both here where everything was more airy and free. However, without Lambert she did not succeed very well in planning. So she again went downstairs, and to her surprise saw by the clock that since Lambert had left but one hour had elapsed. She took some work and seated herself with it on a bench before the door in the shade of the gallery.