Ask yourselves, courteous readers,--all ye whose beloved parents are numbered with the dead,--what would be your feelings if a mother were thus restored to you, even in that hour when you had most need of consolation, and if thus all the pleasant dreams of childhood were brought again smiling around you? For you, however, who yet enjoy that unspeakable blessing, to walk in the light of a mother’s protecting and loving eyes, I would not awaken the frightful thought, that such happiness should ever be taken from you. Without this, you may know well how to sympathize with and to measure that balmy joy which was thus so unexpectedly poured into the bleeding heart of Sir Otto!--In the moon-like radiance of the Druda’s eyes, it seemed as if a whole garden of azure flowers, emblems of hope and confidence, once more sprung up around him. His mother’s well-known features now shone upon him as kindly and mildly as ever; not mournful and disfigured, as when he thought that she lay dying in the forest, nor pale and motionless as he had beheld her during his nightly watch in the chapel. It was long before either of them could again speak calmly. Otto knelt before her, and could only say, “Oh! dearest--dearest mother!--how could’st thou remain so long concealed from one who so dearly loved thee! Heaven knows how many an hour I have spent in weeping thy loss and praying for thee!” Then, in their great joy and affection, they both continued silent, while Sir Heerdegen and the sea-monarch stood, one on each side, with clasped hands,--even as one oftentimes sees in ancient pictures and monuments the figures of devout champions, who stand in respectful meditation beside the divinely-inspired saints of the olden times. At last Hildiridur dismissed the three knights, commanding that her son should come to her alone on the next day, that he might hear from his mother’s lips the eventful history of his parents. Rejoicing, and yet weeping in his gladness, Sir Otto rode homewards through the clear moonlight, while his faithful friends followed him, and in their hearts partook of all his emotion.