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. There
were sad and sorrowful notes that told of sorrows the palace never knew.
There were strains of music that sounded harsh to the listening ear,
though to the careless they told of happiness alone. And as she
listened, Eline dreamed. Clearer and more clear she felt that the harp
told of a world of men where sorrow and sadness and strife were not
unknown; where joy should be, and was not; where the people groped their
way through darkness and thought it light. "Return! Return!" called the
harp.
[Illustration: "I WILL RETURN"]