A Hardy Norseman by Edna Lyall

For a time Frithiof was rather silent and quiet, but Sigrid and Swanhild were in high spirits as they went down to Rowan Tree House, arriving just in time for supper. The atmosphere of happiness, however, is always infectious, and he soon threw off his taciturnity, and dragging himself away from his own engrossing thoughts, forgot the shadows of life in the pure brightness of this home which had been so much to him ever since he first set foot in it.

With Swanhild for an excuse they played all sorts of games; but when at last she had been sent off to bed, the fun and laughter quieted down, Mr. and Mrs. Boniface played their nightly game of backgammon; Roy and Sigrid had a long _tête-à-tête_ in the little inner drawing-room; Cecil sat down at the piano and began to play Mendelssohn's Christmas pieces; and Frithiof threw himself back in the great arm-chair close by her, listening half dreamily and with a restful sense of pause in his life that he had never before known. He desired nothing, he reveled in the sense of freedom from the love which for so long had been a misery to him; the very calm was bliss.