  Again a traveler came to the palace. He brought with him a harp of seven strings, on which he played to the children. He sang to them for a while and then for a space was silent. Eline listened to the strange, beautiful music. And to her it seemed that there was speech in the harp—that it spoke. The other children seemed to listen to the music, but to them it did not seem to speak. To Eline there were echoes of wonderful things the palace knew not; things that the language of the king could not tell. The harp spoke in a way that the Princess Eline knew and understood, although there were no words in its tones. “I WILL RETURN” And a mighty resolve came to Eline. “I will return! I will! I will!” She remembered the king’s saying: “The children of the king are free to come and go,” he had said. “I may not keep them if they will not stay,” he had told her. She loved him much; but the call came clear, and she dared not seek him to say farewell, lest she should be persuaded to remain. “I will go,” she said. “I will return with you.” Then the harp sent forth such a melody of joyous music that it echoed thrilling through the hot discordant notes of the world beyond the sunset; and for a moment a chord of harmony ran through the life of men: “Joy unto you, men of the underworld! Joy unto you, children of sorrow! Joy unto you, sons of forgetfulness! Joy unto all beings!” They passed out of the garden together, the musician and the soul. THROUGH PINE FOREST |
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