Not the angel of death but the angel of beauty seemed to have made his rounds in the night. Not a tree nor a shrub had been passed by. The very dried weeds by the roadside were clothed in fairy garments. It was as if nature had been suddenly purified, exalted, made ready for translation. Alma looked out through her window, not on the dark old oaks or the bare slender birches of yesterday. In feathery whiteness the oaks stood up before her, their hoary heads a crown of beauty, as in a sainted old age. The graceful birches stood in “half concealing, half revealing” pure drapery, as if shrouded in a bridal veil.

Round Karin’s home the solemn evergreens had lost their gloom, and the white-robed branches drooped, as if to cast a double blessing on the passer-by.

Four noisy boys stormed out from the cottage door with a glad shout. They saw nothing of poetry or beauty or mystery in the wonders the hoar-frost had been working. They but remembered they were in the midst of the Christmas holidays, and to-day they were to finish, under the direction of Frans, the packing of the snow slope that led down to the frozen bay. There they were all to have a splendid time coasting on the long new sled that all had been busy in perfecting. “She,” as the boys said, was a “grand affair,” a “regular buster.”

Similar thoughts had been uppermost with Nono, but they had now taken a different form. He was still inside the cottage, coaxing Karin to let Decima have her share in the frolic. He would hold fast to her himself, he said, and see that she came to no harm.

By two o’clock in the afternoon the slide was ready. Many hands had made light work, and Frans had proved an admirable engineer. He now took his place on the long sled as steersman and captain of the whole affair. Decima, rolled in her mother’s red shawl, was placed in the midst of the group of merry boys, Nono’s willing arms holding her as firmly as it was possible to grasp such an uncertain kind of a bundle.

All went on merrily. Far out on to the ice-covered bay the great sled rushed with wonderful swiftness. Then there was the return trip uphill, Decima riding with only Nono beside her, as her humble servitor, to keep her steady.

The sport went on and time flew by. Grown more and more daring, the strong heels of the boys urged on the descending sled till it moved at the pace of a swift locomotive. Suddenly there came a clumsy old-fashioned sleigh along the shore road, which crossed the slide at a right angle. Frans braked with heel and staff, and the other boys in vain did their best to help him. The sled struck the sleigh, and was emptied in a moment. The boys who were unencumbered fell here and there in the soft snow or on the road. Nono held desperately fast to his precious bundle, but could not save little Decima. While the rest of the party were jumping up and rubbing their bruises, or declaring they were “all right,” Nono, half stunned, lay helpless with little Decima still in his arms. She was screaming terribly, and would hardly submit to being lifted up by the boys, even when Nono had rallied and was giving her a helping hand.

The accident was followed by a weary, sorrowful time at the cottage. Decima’s broken leg was set by the doctor, and she was laid on the box couch, her usual bed, with a brick dangling from her ankle to keep the injured limb straight while it was healing.

If Decima had been a queen before, she now became a despot of the most arbitrary sort. She was not patient by nature, and as to her habits of obedience, they seemed broken as well as her leg. There was no limit to her exactions. Her brothers she treated like worthless slaves, and they soon learned to keep out of her reach, and when possible out of the cottage. Nono spent his spare time faithfully beside her, contriving all sorts of devices for her amusement. Frans looked in often to see how she was getting on, and never came empty-handed. There was always some special sweet bit to please her, or a “picture book,” or an apple, or a dainty plate of food begged from the housekeeper.

Once, when Frans was going to the village, Alma had thought of commissioning him to buy a doll, a prettily-dressed doll, for Decima; but she checked herself, almost as if the idea had been sinful, and that day a special contribution found its way down the chimney of her treasure-house. Notwithstanding the kindness of Frans to the little patient, he did not find her an angelic sufferer, even as far as he was concerned. She became more and more fastidious as to his presents, always expecting some gift more novel and beautiful than the last. Frans made all kinds of jokes about her “decimal fractiousness,” which were noisily appreciated by the young arithmeticians at the cottage. Nono alone could not laugh at anything which concerned Decima’s misfortune, for which he considered himself in a manner accountable.

The great undivided room of the interior of the cottage was now a sore trial for Karin. The door seemed to be always ajar, Decima declaring she felt a draught wherever she was placed. At last the boys went out one day and left the door wide open, with poor little Decima alone in the room, with a rush of keen air blowing upon her. Of course she took cold, and Karin was quite in despair. The child began to complain that the boys always were making a noise, and the dishes rattled so they hurt her. It was in vain that Karin tripped about with the utmost care; her lightest steps, Decima said, shook the whole floor. As for Jan and the boys, they were for ever doing something that made the little patient’s head ache or that put her in a bad humour. The doctor finally said he did not see how Decima was to get well in that room, with that noisy family about her. It might do for well folks to live so packed together, but to be sick in such a place was another question.

Karin, with her usually cheerful face all clouded, went one day to old Pelle’s room for comfort, as she had often done before. He did not say, though he thought it, that his own little den was none of the warmest, or he would take Decima there. He was thankful for the shelter, such as it was. He proposed nothing for the child’s comfort, but reminded Karin that little Decima was as precious to the Master as are the tender lambs to the shepherd, and she went out comforted. She found Nono waiting for her at the door, with his dark eyes large and earnest.

“I have thought what I can do, Mother Karin,” he said. “I shall go up to Stockholm and ask the good princess to take Decima into her home for sick children, and she will be sure to get better there!”

“You go up to Stockholm! you ask the princess!” exclaimed Karin, astonished at the magnitude and almost presumption of the proposal.

“I feel as if I knew the princess,” persevered Nono. “I have thought so much about her, and looked at her face until she don’t seem to me like a stranger, and then I know that she is so good. I want to start to-day, Mother Karin. There is only a little time left of the vacation, and I could not be away when school begins, you know. It is so beautiful to-day, and not very cold.”

Jan came along at the moment, and Nono explained his plan to him, much as he had done to Karin, but with quite a different result.

“You are the right kind of a boy, Nono,” said Jan, with hearty approval. “You shall do just as you say. Maybe the Father in heaven put it into your head. I know how a father feels when his children are in trouble. Our royal family have never held their heads too high to hear when the people were really in need. I am sure the princess would be pleased to do what she could for our little Decima. Karin, you get Nono ready, right off. He is a good walker. It will only take him two days to do it. Give him some loaves of bread, and he shall have some coppers from me to buy milk by the way, and it will go well with him, I really believe. There is not a cottager in Sweden who would not take him in for a night when they had heard what he was out for. Something must be done, any way, and we had better try this. It takes all the heart out of me to see Decima as she is our only girl, and such a dear!”

There was something moist in Jan’s eyes, but he brushed it away with the back of his hand.

The boys had been sent to the woods to bring home their sled loaded with brandies, to be cut up for fuel, for Jan had been felling a tree the day before. When they came home to dinner they heard with astonishment that Nono was off on his wonderful errand. “The little boys” were at once detailed to wait upon Decima, when she condescended to receive their attentions an office on which they entered with quizzical shrugs and wry faces and many misgivings.

It had struck Jan at once that one of the older boys would have been much better fitted for such a trip than little Nono; but what would they dare to say to a princess? They would perhaps never be allowed to get into the palace at all. Nono, with his pretty ways and bright black eyes, would be sure to get in anywhere. Karin had made him neat enough to come into anybody’s house. And as to his telling his story, he could talk like a book when he got started, and make his hands talk too, if he chose.

Old Pelle’s eyes had glistened when he heard of the plan. When he bade Nono good-bye, he had begun the boy’s favourite text, “He who delivered me from the lion and the bear ” He stopped, and then added, “The princess is no Philistine, but one of the Lord’s anointed, I am sure. She is the great King’s daughter! You know what I mean, Nono.”

Nono did understand, and went out strengthened. He knew he had Uncle Pelle’s approval and his blessing on his errand.