Kate ran about the room at the hotel, so busy, so happy and excited, as though she were expecting a dear guest. She felt so sure they would bring the child back with them straightway. At all events she would commence packing the trunks, for when they had got it they would want to get home, home as quickly as possible. "The hotel is no place for such a little darling. It must have its nursery, a bright room with flowered curtains--but dark ones besides to draw in front of the windows so as to subdue the light when it goes to sleep--otherwise everything must be bright, light, airy. And there must be a baby's chest-of-drawers there with all the many bottles and basins, and its little bath, its bed with the white muslin curtains behind which you can see it lying with red cheeks, its little fist near its head, slumbering soundly." She was so young-looking, so lovely in her joyful expectation, that her husband was charmed with her. Did not the sunshine seem to be coming now for which he had been waiting so long in vain? It preceded the child, fell on its path, making it clear and bright. Both husband and wife were full of excitement as they drove to Longfaye. They had taken a comfortable landau that could be closed that day, instead of the light carriage for two in which they generally made their excursions. It might be too cold for the child on the way back. Rugs and cloaks and shawls were packed in it, quite a large choice. Paul Schlieben had taken his papers with him. They would hardly be likely to want any proof of his identity, but he stuck them into his pocket as a precaution, so as to provide against any delay that might be caused by their absence. He had been told that the vestryman was quite a sensible man, so everything would be settled smoothly. As the rowan trees on both sides of the road bowed their tops under their autumn load of red berries, so the heads of both husband and wife were bowed under a flood of thoughts full of promise. The trees flew quickly past the carriage as it rolled along, and so did their lives' different stages past their agitated minds. Fifteen years of married life--long years when one is expecting something first with confidence, then with patience, then with faint-heartedness, then with longing, with a longing that is kept more and more secret as the years go by, and that becomes more and more burning on account of the secrecy. Now the fulfilment was at hand--a fulfilment certainly different from what husbands and wives who love each other picture to themselves, but still a fulfilment. That old sentence in the Bible came into the woman's mind and would not be banished: _But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son._ Oh, this child from a strange, from an unknown land, from a land that had neither fields nor fruits, and was not blessed with rich harvests, this child was a gift from God, given by His goodness. She bowed her head full of gratitude, as though she had received a blessing.