Magnhild; Dust

"What nonsense was this?" The rest of the party must see: it was translated into English for Betsy Roland. Now they remembered that as they drove into the station they had seen a carriage, with a gentleman and lady in it, driving quickly past them up the road. The gentleman had turned his face away, as though he did not wish to be seen; the lady was closely veiled.

They were still talking of this when they sat in the carriage and drove away, while all the people at the station had assembled to watch them. The travelers concluded that the verses must have been written by some happy new-married couple; and Magnhild, by one of those trains of thought which cannot be accounted for, called to mind the young couple, the gentleman in morocco slippers, and the lady with her hair so strangely done up, she had met at the next station, on her own wedding trip. This led her to recall her own wedding, then to think of what she had gone through in all these years, and of how aimless her whole life was,—aimless whether she looked into the past or into the future.

Day had meanwhile dawned in wondrous beauty. The sun had risen above the lofty mountains. The valley, although narrow, was so situated that it was thoroughly illumined by the sunshine. The stream now flowed in a narrower, more rocky bed, was white with foam where struggles arose, grass-green where they ceased, blue where there were overhanging shadows, and gray where the water formed eddies over a clay bottom. The grass here was filled with stubble, farther up it was studded with yellow cowslips, the largest they had ever seen.

The peaks of the mountains sparkled, the dark pine forest in the bosom and lap of the chain displayed such a wealth of luxuriance, that whoever viewed it aright must inevitably be refreshed. Close by the road-side grew deciduous trees, for here the pines had been cut down, yet ever and anon they pushed their way triumphantly forth from their vigorous headquarters in the background. The road was free from dust. On the outskirts of the forest grew mountain flowers, all glittering with the last dew-drops of the day.

The travelers had the carriage stop that they might pluck some of the flowers; and then they sat in the grass and amused the child with them; they wove garlands and twined them about the little one. A short distance farther up, where the stream had sunk so far beneath them that its roar had ceased to sound above all else, they heard the jubilant song of birds. The thrush, singly and in groups, swung from tree to tree, and its vigorous chirping had a cheering tone. A startled wood-grouse, with strong wing-beats, flew shrieking among the branches. A dog who followed the horses set chase to the red grouse; they shrieked, flapped their wings, hid in the heather, shrieked, started up again and sought a circuitous way back. They must have nests here. There was also a rich growth of birch round about this little heath.

"Ah, how I have longed for this journey! And Charles, who gave it to me!" The tears stood in Rönnaug's eyes, but she brushed them away, after she had kissed her child. "No, no tears. Why should there be any?"

And she sang:—

"This is our summer trip, Magnhild! The summer travels in Norway. Now onward!"

But Magnhild bowed down and covered her face with her hands.

"All shall be well with you, Magnhild. Charles is so good! He will do everything for you."

But here she heard Magnhild sob, and so she said no more.

The sunny day through which they rode onward, the fresh, aromatic mountain air they inhaled, the sounds of jubilee which burst forth from the forest, blending with childhood's memories, became too much for Rönnaug. She forgot Magnhild and began to sing again. Then she took the child and chatted playfully with it and with Miss Roland. She was surprised by Magnhild's asking:—

"Do you love your husband, Rönnaug?"

"Do I love him? Why, when Mr. Charles Randon said to me: 'I will gladly provide for your education, Rönnaug; I hope you will let me have this pleasure,'—well, I let him have the pleasure. When Mr. Charles said to me: 'My dear Rönnaug, I am much older than you; yet if you could consent to be my wife, I am certain that I should be happy,'—well—and so I made him happy. And when Mr. Charles said: 'My dear Rönnaug, take good care of our little Harry, so that I may find you all in Liverpool in September, and your Norwegian friend with you,'—why, I determined that he should find us all in Liverpool in September, and little Harry well and hearty; and my Norwegian friend along, too!"—and she kissed the child and set it to laughing.

They changed horses at the next post-station. Magnhild and Miss Roland kept their seats in the carriage. Rönnaug got out, partly to re-visit familiar haunts, partly to make an entry in the register. That was her duty, she said. Presently she came back, laughing, with the register. Under the entry: "Two persons for the next station,"—indicating that these two persons were too much absorbed to even trouble themselves with the name of the next station,—were the following lines:—

Rönnaug translated it for Betsy Roland, and now various conjectures were expressed by them all, in both Norwegian and English. They agreed in supposing the writers to be two lovers, on a journey, under peculiar circumstances; but whether they were a newly-married couple, or merely lovers; whether theirs was a runaway flight, or whether they were simply actuated by exuberance of spirits over happily overcome obstacles, or,—oh! there were manifold possibilities.

Rönnaug wished to copy the verses, and Magnhild offered her a leaf from her pocket-book. As this was produced a letter fell from it. Magnhild was surprised, but she soon remembered that she had received the letter by mail the evening before, an hour after her husband's arrival. Wholly absorbed in her conflict with him, she had placed it for the time in her pocket-book. She never received letters, so she could not imagine from whom this could come. The two travelers from America did not notice that the letter bore a foreign stamp, but Magnhild saw this at once. She tore open the letter; it was written in a delicate hand, on fine paper, and was quite long. It was headed "Munich," and the signature was—did she read aright?—"Hans Tande." She folded the letter again, without knowing what she was doing, while the hot blushes spread over face and neck. The two others acted as though they had observed nothing; Rönnaug busied herself with copying the verses.

They drove rapidly on, and left Magnhild to her reflections. But her embarrassment increased to such a degree that it became positive torture to her to sit in the carriage with the others. She meekly begged to be allowed to get out and walk a little distance. Rönnaug smiled and ordered the coachman to stop,—they had just reached a level plain where the horses could rest a while. When the travelers had alighted, she took Magnhild by the hand and led her toward a thicket a few steps behind them.

"Come—go in there now and read your letter!" said she.

When Magnhild found herself alone in the wood she stood still. Her agitation had compelled her to pause. She peered about her, as though fearing even in this lonely spot the presence of people. The sun played here and there on the yellow pine needles that were strewn about, on the fallen decayed branches, on the dark green moss covering the stones, on the heather in the glades. Around her all was profoundly still; from the sunny margin of the wood there floated toward her the twittering of a solitary bird, the babbling of the child, and Rönnaug's laughter, which rang with the utmost clearness through the trees.

Magnhild ventured to draw forth the letter once more. She opened it. It was not folded in the original creases. She spread it out before her, and looked at it as an aged woman might gaze into the depths of a chest upon her bridal garments. A solitary sunbeam, breaking through the branches, played restlessly on the sheet, and was now round, now oblong. Magnhild saw within its shining ring one word, two words, more distinctly than the rest. "Great hopes—and failed!" were written there. "Great hopes—and failed." She read and trembled. Alas! alas! alas! Over and over again she read the words, and felt rich in expectation, in dread, in memories of bliss and of conflict; she could not sit still, she rose to her feet, but only to sit down again to fresh efforts. The ringing tones of Rönnaug's laughter broke upon her solitude, like a staff, which she grasped for support. She gained courage from Rönnaug's courage, and looked here and there in the letter, not to read, rather to find out whether she dare read. But she was too agitated to connect the broken sentences, and was led, almost unawares, to a continuous perusal. She did not understand all that she read. Still it was a communion; it was like the warm clasp of a hand. There was music wafted about her,—his music; she was once more in his presence, with the rare perfume, the look, the embarrassed silence, amid which she had experienced earth's highest bliss. The diamond cut its shining circlets over the piano keys, his white, refined hand played "Flowers on the Green." Wholly under his influence now, she became absorbed in re-reading the letter, comprehended it better than before, paused, exulted without words, read, while the tears trickled down her cheeks. She paused, without being aware of it, simply because she could not see, began again, without perceiving it, wept profusely, read on, finished only to begin anew—three, four, five times from beginning to end. She could read no more.

What had she not experienced during this perusal of thoughts and feelings she had had a thousand times before, and thoughts and feelings she had never dreamed of!

The first complete impression she gathered, in the humid forest shades, where she sat concealed from view, was like a shaft of quivering sunbeams. It was the foreboding which stole over her—it was not put into words, and yet it was breathed from every line (a thousand times sweeter so!) the foreboding, aye, the certainty, that he, yes, that he had loved her!—and the second was that he had at the same time been fully aware of her love, long, long before she had grasped it herself! and he had not hinted at this by so much as a look. How considerate he had been! And yet, what must he not have seen in her heart! Was it true? Could it be true?

Ah! it was all one! And yet amidst her grief the thought of being able to feel all this to the core as he had felt, was like the sun shining behind a misty atmosphere and gradually bursting through the layers of fog with thousands of undreamed-of light effects, above and below. How freely she could breathe again after the void, privation, brooding of many years.

Not until later did individual thoughts force themselves forward, then not fully until Rönnaug came to her. There was something labored in this letter; it read occasionally like a translation from a foreign language. But now for the letter itself:—

I have just returned from the south. I thought myself strong enough. Alas! The papers have doubtless informed you that I am ill; but the papers do not know what I now know!

The first thing I do in this new certainty is to write to you, dear Magnhild.

You will, of course, be painfully surprised at the sight of my signature. I awakened great hopes—and failed when they should have been fulfilled.

A thousand times since I have thought how impossible it would be for you to go to the piano and try over some song we three had studied together, or some exercise we two had gone through. A miracle would have been needed to compel you to do so.

A thousand times I have considered whether I should write to you, and tell you what I must now tell you, that this has been the deepest sorrow of my life.

You set me free from a once rich, but afterward unworthy relation, and this was my salvation. The germ of innocence in my soul was once more released. The entire extent of my emancipation, however, I did not realize so long as we were together.

And I repaid you for what you had done for me by desolating your life, so far as lay within my power. But I have also yearned to tell you what I now believe: our destiny upon earth is not alone what we ourselves have recognized it to be, not alone what we believe to be the main purpose of our existences. When you, without being yourself conscious of it, gave me a purer, higher tendency, you were fulfilling a part of your destiny, dear Magnhild. It was perhaps a small part; but perhaps it was also only an hundredth part of still more which you had done for many others without so much as suspecting it yourself.

Magnhild, I can say it now without danger of being misinterpreted, and also without doing harm; for you have become four years and a half older and I am going hence; indeed, I believe it will help you to hear it. Well, then, the innocence in your soul had become, amidst your peculiar circumstances, a moral atmosphere which in you, more than in any one I ever met, proclaimed itself to be a power. It was all the more beautiful because so unconscious in its manifestations. It was breathed from every manifestation of your bashfulness. It revealed itself to me not alone in your blushes, Magnhild; no, in the tone of your voice also, in the immediate relations you held with every one you had intercourse with, or looked upon, or merely greeted. If there were those in your presence who were not pure, you made them appear abhorrent; you taught even the fallen ones what beauty there is in moral purity.

You have the fullest right to rejoice over what I say. Aye, may it bring you more than rejoicing! It is not well to brood over a lost vocation, Magnhild, and the letters I receive from Grong lead me to suppose that this is what you are now doing. One who does not attain the first or greatest object of his ambition ought not to sink into listless inactivity; for do we not thus check the development of the thousand-leaved destiny of the tree of life? May not even disappointment be part of this?

---

(Five days later.)

Magnhild, I do not say this in self-justification. Every time I think of your singing I realize what I have repressed. It possessed a purity, untouched by passion, and that was why it moved with such exalting influence through my soul. The perfume of tender memories was in it, memories of my childhood, my mother, my good teacher, my first conceptions of music, my first yearning for love, or thirst for beauty. It also revived the first, pure tintings of life, those which had not yet become glaring, still less tainted.

I think of your singing artistically schooled, radiant with spirituality—what a revelation! And this I checked in its growth.

I bought while we were together some of the brooches made by your father. I showed them to no one. Under the circumstances it would have caused suspicion and consequent annoyance. But in those brooches I felt the family calling, Magnhild, the family work, which your talent should have further continued. In your father's work there is innocent fancy, patience, in its imperfections, as it were, a sigh of far more significant, undeveloped power.

Is all this now checked because your progress is checked, you who are the last of your family and without children? No, I cannot justify myself.

---

(I have been again compelled to lay aside my pen for many days. Now I must try if I can finish.)

Let not the wrong I did to you, and thereby, alas, to many both in the present and in the future, be used by you as an excuse for never making further progress! You can, if you will, give free scope to whatever power there is within you, if not in one way, in another. And do this now; do it, also, because I implore you! You can make the burden of my fault less heavy for my thoughts, now in the last hours of my life.

Aye, while I write this it grows lighter. The kindness you, in spite of all, surely cherish toward me (I feel it!) sends me a greeting.

You will, so far as you can, rescue my life's work, where it failed to complete its efforts; you will build upon and improve, Magnhild!

You will, moreover, accept this request as a consolation?

---

(I could proceed no farther. But to-day I am better.)

If what I have written helps to open the world once more to you, so that you can enter in and take hold of life's duties; aye, if all that you have either neglected or only half performed can come to attain the rank of links in life's problem, and thus become dear to you,—then it will do me good; remember this! Farewell!

Ah, yes, farewell! I have other letters to write, and cannot do much. Farewell!

Hans Tande.

---

(Eight days later.)

I copy in this letter to you the following lines from a letter to another:—

"It is not true that love is for every one the portal to life. Perchance it is not so for even half of those who attain real life.

"There are many whose lives are ruined by the loss of love, or by sacrificing everything to love. With some of them, perhaps, it could not have been otherwise (people are so different, circumstances excuse so much); but those whose existences I have seen thus blighted could unconditionally have gained the mastery over self and in the effort acquired a new power. Encouraged, however, by a class of literature and art whose short-sightedness proceeds from a maimed will, they neglected all attempts at gaining strength."

CHAPTER XI.

The two friends took a long ramble. Magnhild had become a new being to Rönnaug, her individuality enriched, her countenance illumined and thus transformed. For nearly five years Magnhild had been secretly brooding over her lost vocation, and her lost love, those two sisters that had lived and died together. At length she had opened her heart to another; thus something had been accomplished.

The horses were now hitched to the carriage, and the party drove on. The noonday repose of nature was not disturbed by so much as the rumbling of the wheels, for the carriage wound its way slowly over the mountain slopes.

At the next post-station the following lines were found in the register:—

These little verses began to affect the party like a chorus of birds.

But a joy to which we are unattuned is apt to jar; and here, moreover, the verses became prophetic, for the travelers had gone but a short distance when they gained a view of the church steeple on the heights where Magnhild's parents and brothers and sisters were buried, and of the stony ground in the mountain to the left where the home of her childhood had been situated.

This barren patch of stones always rose up distinctly in Magnhild's mind when she thought of her own life, whose long desert wastes seemed to lay stretched out before her like just such a heap of ruins. Here it faced her once more. It was some time before the consolation she had newly grasped could find expression, for she was haunted by so much that was unsolved, so much that was doubtful. She was now approaching the starting-point of the whole; from the brow of the hill the parsonage was visible.

It had been agreed that they should stop here. The carriage rolled down toward the friendly gard through an avenue of birch-trees. Rönnaug was giving Miss Roland a most humorous description of the family at the parsonage when suddenly they were all terrified by having the carriage nearly upset. Just by the turn near the house-steps the coachman had driven against a large stone which lay with its lower side protruding into the road. Both Rönnaug and Miss Roland uttered a little shriek, but when they escaped without an accident they laughed. To their delight Magnhild joined in their laughter. Trifling as had been the occurrence, it had served to rouse her. She was surprised to find herself at the parsonage. And this stone? Ah, how many hundred vehicles had not driven over it! Would it ever be removed, though? There stood old Andreas, old Sören, old Knut? There, too, was old Ane, looking out! From the sitting-room came the sound of a dog's bark.

"Have they a dog?" asked Magnhild.

"If they have," replied Rönnaug, "I will venture to say it came through its own enterprise."

Old Ane took the luggage, Rönnaug the child, and the whole party was ushered through the passage into the sitting-room, where no one was found except the dog. He was a great shaggy fellow, who at the first kind word relinquished his wrath, and in a leisurely way went from one to the other, snuffing and wagging his tail, then sauntering back to the stove, lay down, fat and comfortable.

A creaking and a grating could now be heard overhead; the priest was rising from the sofa. How well Magnhild knew the music of those springs! The dog knew it too, and started up, ready to follow his master. But the latter, who was soon heard on the groaning wooden stairs, did not go out but came into the sitting-room, so the dog only greeted him, and wagging his tail went back to the stove, where he rolled over with a sigh after his excessive exertion.

The priest was unchanged in every possible particular. He had heard about Rönnaug, and was glad to see her; his plump hands closed with a long friendly clasp about hers and with a still longer one about Magnhild's. He greeted Miss Roland and played with the child, who was in high glee over the unfamiliar objects in the room, especially the dog.

And when he had lighted his pipe and had seated the others and himself on the embroidered chairs and sofas, the first thing he must tell them (for it was just about a month since the matter had been successfully terminated) was that the "little girls" were provided for. There had been secured for each an annuity. It was really on the most astonishingly favorable terms. God in his inconceivable mercy had been so good to them. About the "Fröken" (so the former governess was usually called), they had had greater cause for anxiety. They had, indeed, thought of doing something for her, too, although their means would scarcely have sufficed to make adequate provision for her, and she had grown too unwieldy to support herself. But God in his inscrutable mercy had not forgotten her. She no longer needed an annuity. She had gone to make a visit at the house of a relative not many miles distant, and while there God had called her to Himself; the journey had been too much for her. This intelligence had reached the parsonage a few days before, and the priest was in great uncertainty as to whether a bridal couple would postpone their wedding for a few days.

"Thus it is, dear Magnhild, in life's vicissitudes," said he. "The one is summoned to the grave, the other to the marriage feast. Ah, yes! But what a pretty dress you have on, my child! Skarlie is truly a good husband to you. This cannot be denied."

The mistress of the house and her two daughters at length appeared. The moistened hair, the clean linen, the freshly ironed dresses, betokened newly-made toilets. They had not a word to say; the priest took charge of the conversation, they merely courtesied as they shook hands, and then, taking up their embroidery, sat down each on her own embroidered chair. One of the daughters, however, soon rose and whispered something to her mother; from the direction in which first her eyes then her mother's wandered, it might be concluded that she had asked whether the gauze covers should be removed from the mirror, the pictures, and the few plaster figures in the room. As the girl at once took her seat again, it must have been decided that the covers should not be removed.

"Tell me about the Fröken who is dead," said Magnhild.

With one accord the three ladies dropped their embroidery and raised their heads.

"She died of apoplexy," said the priest's wife.

They all sat motionless for a moment, and then the ladies continued their embroidery.

The priest rose to let the dog out. The animal departed with the appearance of being excessively abashed, for which the priest gave him much praise. Then followed a lengthy account of the dog's virtues. He had come to them three years ago, the Lord alone knew from where, and He alone knew why the dog had come to the parsonage; for the very next summer the animal had saved the "Fröken's" life when she was attacked on her accustomed walk to the church by Ole Björgan's mad bull.

The third great event, that old Andreas had cut his foot, was next detailed at quite as great length. The priest was just telling what old Andreas had said when he, the priest, was helping him to the couch, when the narrative was interrupted by an humble scratching at the door; it came, of course, from the dog. The corpulent priest rose forthwith to admit the animal, and bestowed on him kind words of admonition, which were accepted with a timid wagging of the tail.

The dog glanced round the room; observing that the eyes of the priest's wife manifestly rested with especial friendliness on him, he walked up to her, and licked the hand extended to him.

At this moment Magnhild rose, and abruptly crossing the floor to where the priest's wife sat, she stroked her hair. She felt that every one was watching her, and that the mistress of the house herself was looking up in embarrassed surprise,—and Magnhild was now powerless to explain what she had done. She hastened from the room. Profound silence reigned among those left behind.

What was it? What had happened? It was this: in the forenoon Magnhild had received a letter, as we know, and it had caused her to look with new eyes on the life at the parsonage.

The tedium seemed uplifted, and behind it she beheld a kindness and an innocence she had always overlooked. And she began to understand the character of that home.

There was not a word in the priest's narratives, from beginning to end, designed to call attention to the good he or any of his household had done. The listener was left to find this out for himself. But the dog had discovered it before Magnhild.

The dog returned thanks; had she ever done so? The thought had rushed over her with such force that it caused her to feel an irresistible impulse to express her gratitude. The universal astonishment caused by her effort to do so made her for the first time realize how unaccustomed her friends were to thanks, or indication of thanks from her, and she became frightened. This was the reason why she had left the room.

She took the road leading up toward the church, perhaps because it had just been mentioned. Her new views wholly absorbed her. Until now she had seen only the ludicrous side of the life at the parsonage. The members of the household had provoked, amused, or wearied her. But hitherto she had not been aware that what had just been praised in herself had been gained by her in this household whose influences had spread themselves protectingly over her soul, just as the embroidery was spread over the furniture in these rooms. Had all the weaknesses of the house served Skarlie as a means to ensnare her, in this same house she had acquired the strength wherewith to resist his power until the present time.

If she had lived here without forming close relations with any one, the fault lay not alone in the monotonous routine of the house: it was due chiefly to herself, for even in the days of her life at the parsonage she had wrapped herself up in dreams. It must have required all the forbearance by which the family were characterized to bring her, notwithstanding all this, to the point she had reached. In any other family she would have been shown the door—dull, awkward, thankless as she had been.

Yes, thankless! Whom had she ever thanked? Aye, there was one—him who had done her the most harm but also the most good; for him she loved. But this could scarcely be counted.

But whom else? Not Skarlie, although he had been incessantly kind to her, even he. Not Fru Bang, and how kind she had been! Not Rönnaug; no, not Rönnaug either.

She was appalled. For the first time in her life she held true communion with herself, and she had done little else all her life than commune with herself.

Now she comprehended, although once before she had been startled by a passing thought of the kind; now for the first time she comprehended what it must have been to Rönnaug after having longed for so many years to tell her about the rich change in her own life, to show her her child, to bring her freedom and increased happiness; and then to find a person who did not even care to take the trouble to walk to the hotel, not a hundred steps distant, because, forsooth, it would necessitate her dressing herself.

She sat once more on the heights facing the ruins of the home of her parents; and she covered her face in shame.

From the thoughts to which this spot gave birth she did not escape until evening, weary in body and in soul.

When late in the evening she said good-night to Rönnaug, she threw her arm round her, and leaned her head against hers. But words refused to come; they are not easily found the first time they are sought.

CHAPTER XII.

He greeted Rönnaug with a keen, hasty glance, and, without a word, went into an apartment near hers.

Rönnaug sat listening to the singing while she put on her boots. It flowed so equally and calmly; unquestionably there was joy in it, but the joy was subdued—it might be called pure.

She remained still until Magnhild ended, and even then paused a little while. She finally went down-stairs. The door of the sitting-room was half open, which accounted for her having heard so distinctly. Magnhild had turned round with the piano-stool and sat talking with the two friends of her childhood, who had seats one on each side of her. She had been singing for them, it would seem.

They all rose as Rönnaug entered. Magnhild called her friend's attention to the clock. Verily, the hour hand pointed to ten. Magnhild had been up a long time—and singing.

The girls withdrew to carry coffee, eggs, etc., into the dining-room. As soon as Magnhild saw that she and Rönnaug were alone, she hastened to ask if Rönnaug knew that Grong was at the parsonage. Rönnaug told about having just met him.

"Yes," whispered Magnhild, "he is traveling in search of his son. Only think, the young man has eloped with the girl to whom he is betrothed! He is twenty years old, she about sixteen."

"So, then, the verses—?"

"Were of course by Grong's son. Grong is furious. He wanted to make a poet of his son, though!"

They both laughed.

The young man was really extraordinarily gifted, Magnhild further narrated, and for his sake his father had read extensively, besides taking long journeys with his son in Germany, France, Italy, and England. Plans had been made to give the young man an opportunity of gaining an impression of the scenery of his fatherland and of country life, but—pop!—the bird had flown.

Grong was now heard on the stairs, so nothing more was said. He gave the ladies a sharp glance as he entered, then began to pace the floor, as completely hidden by his beard as though it were a forest, and veiled by his spectacles as an image is veiled in a fountain.

They sat down to the late breakfast, and the priest's wife received them, one by one, with diffident friendliness. The priest had gone down to the school-house to attend a meeting.

After the meal was over, Grong, who had not opened his mouth for any other purpose than to eat and to drink, walked through the sitting-room and passage directly out to the door-steps. Rönnaug bravely followed; she wished to talk with him. He discovered this and made an effort to escape, but was overtaken and obliged to walk up the road with Rönnaug. When he heard what she wanted, he exclaimed:—

"I have been so confoundedly bored with this tall woman and her tiresome vocation, that you will find it impossible to get one word out of me. Besides, I am expecting my 'skyds.'"

He was about to turn away; but Rönnaug held fast to him, laughing, and brought him back to the theme. Before she had succeeded, however, in laying before him the necessary facts, he interrupted with,—

"The fact is she has no vocation whatever; that is the whole secret of the matter. Her singing? Tande so often wrote to me about her singing. Well, I have been listening to her singing this morning, and do you know what I think about it? Technical correctness, good method, pure tone, in abundance; but no fancy, no inspiration, no expression; how the deuce could there be! Had she had fancy, she would have had energy, and with her voice, her natural technical ability, she would have become a singer, whether there was a Tande or not, whether she had married a Skarlie or a Farlie."

Notwithstanding the harsh, blunt form in which this idea was framed, there might be sufficient truth in it to make it worth while to place Magnhild's history before Grong in its true light. Grong could not resist the fascination of a soul's experiences. He became all ear, forgetting both his ire and his "skyds."

He heard now about the Magnhild who would scarcely take pains to dress herself, and who let Skarlie do and say what he pleased, but who the moment Skarlie mentions Tande's name and hers together, in other words, invades her inner sanctuary, flees forthwith from him to America. Was there no energy in that?

He heard about the Magnhild who, checked in her highest aspirations, became wholly indifferent. The relations with Tande were fully explained. Grong, indeed, had been partially acquainted with them by Tande himself. Rönnaug also thought it right to inform Grong of the purport of Tande's letter; she could recall it perfectly, for it had made a deep impression on her.

What an impression did it not make on Grong!

How much it must have cost this man in his time to renounce what he had originally believed to be his vocation. And now to have to give up his hopes for his son? How could she and Magnhild have laughed at this—as they had done that same morning.

"Consolation in the idea that our calling is greater and more manifold than we ourselves are aware? Yes, for those who can blindly and without exercise of their own wills place themselves under subjection to the unknown guidance! I cannot do so!" He raised his clinched hand, but let it fall again. "Is it a crime to steer toward a definite goal, and concentrate one's will, one's responsibility upon its attainment? Look at yonder insect! It goes straight forward; it has a fixed aim. Now I crush it to death. See—thus!

"You should have seen my wife," he continued, presently. "She sped onward through life, with fluttering veil; her eyes, her thoughts sparkled. What was her goal? Just as she was beginning, with my aid, to comprehend her faculties, she expired. A meteor!

"I had a friend. What talents, and what aspirations! How handsome he was! When he was but little over twenty years of age, he fell during the siege of a Danish fortress, scarcely mentioned, scarcely remembered. A meteor!

"But what solicitude for existences which neither can nor will be of any use in the world. That fisherman in Nordland was the only person who was saved from destruction out of a whole parish. And he lived more than sixty years as stupid as the codfish he drew out of the sea.

"For the sake of others? For the advancement of one's fellow-creatures? For the good of posterity? Aye, aye, find consolation in all this, if you can! Before I shall be able to do so I must see the benefit of it for myself. The mole's life in the dark, with chance alone for its guide, is not a life that I could lead, even though I might have a certificate guarantying that light should dawn on me one day, that is to say, on the other side of the grave. I admire those who can be content with such a lot."

"In other words, you despise them!" interposed Rönnaug.

Grong looked at her, but made no reply.

Rönnaug was anxious to know how it was best to advise Magnhild. Grong promptly answered,—

"Advise her to go to work."

"Without definite object? Merely for the sake of work?"

He hesitated a moment, and then said,—

"I will tell you one thing, my good lady: Magnhild's misfortune has been that throughout her whole life she has had every want supplied, every meal, every garment. Had she been obliged to labor hard, or to bring up children, she would not have indulged so freely in dreams."

"So, then, work without definite aim?" repeated Rönnaug.

"There are so many kinds of aims," said Grong, peevishly,—and then he was silent. It was evident that he had been all round the circle and had returned to his wrath over what had befallen himself.

They had turned and were retracing their steps in the friendly birch avenue leading to the parsonage. The tones of a human voice were heard; they drew nearer, paused, and listened attentively. The windows were open, and every note rang out, clear and equal.

"Yes, there is purity in the voice," said Grong; "that is true. But purity is a mere passive quality."

They went on.

"Not technical skill alone, then?" queried Rönnaug.

To this Grong made no reply. He had fallen into a new train of thought. When they had reached the house, he roused himself.

"She and I are, both of us, I dare say, bearers of a half-completed family history. Nevertheless, her family dies out with her; and mine? Oh, all this is enough to drive one mad! Where is my 'skyds?'"

With these words he strode past the main building to the court-yard behind. Rönnaug slowly followed. The "skyds" had not yet arrived. Grumbling considerably, Grong sauntered up to the coach-house, whose doors stood open, and in which he saw Rönnaug's carriage. She joined him, and they discussed the carriage together. It was too light for a traveling carriage, Grong thought. One fore-wheel must already have been damaged, for it had been taken off. So, then, it depended upon the blacksmith how long the ladies would remain at the parsonage? But he would start without further delay; for there—at last—came the "skyds."

He bade her a light farewell, as though he were merely going to the next corner, and then went into the house for his luggage. Rönnaug, however, determined to wait until he came out again.

She had a kindly feeling for him. She earnestly hoped that the son's case was not so bad as the father now thought. There was so much unrest in Grong. Was not this caused by his having a great variety of "talents," but no one special talent? She had once heard Grong half jestingly make a similar assertion about another person. All these endowments, however, might be combined in one main tendency, of this Rönnaug felt sure. It might be the same in the case of Magnhild; but perhaps there was not sufficient talent there. Technical ability? Aye, if that were her chief endowment she could doubtless render it available in singing.

Rönnaug had failed to find the light she needed. This was truly discouraging; for counsel must be given, a resolution formed. She prayed God for her friend, and for this gloomy man now coming out of the house, accompanied by the priest's wife, who seemed to be the only person to whom he had said farewell.

"Present my greetings to my old teacher," he called down from the cariole, as he grasped the hand of the mistress of the house. "Tell him—tell him nothing!" and with this he whipped up his horse so suddenly that the "skyds" boy came near being left behind.

The priest's wife made some remarks about his surely being very unhappy, as she stood watching him drive away. While the ladies were still at the door, a woman came walking up the road toward them. She nodded and smiled at the mistress of the house as she passed on her way to the kitchen.

"You made your sale?"

"Yes."

"I thought so from your looks."

Then turning to Rönnaug the priest's wife said,—

"This woman, you may well believe, made Magnhild happy this morning."

"How so?"

"Why, she stopped here with her work on her way to the dealer, who makes purchases for a merchant in town. Just as she stepped inside Magnhild came down into the kitchen. When the woman caught sight of her, she eagerly addressed her—she is a great talker—and she began to cry and to talk, to talk and to cry, telling how poor she had been and how well off both she and her children now were. Magnhild, you know, for many years taught an Industrial School up in these mountains, and this woman was one of her aptest pupils. This hand-work, I can assure you, has spread rapidly here; there are scarcely any poor people to be found in our parish now."

"But Magnhild—was she glad?"

"She certainly must have been glad, for soon afterward we heard her singing. And the last time she was here—about four or five years ago—we could not persuade her to go near the piano."

Rönnaug now greeted Miss Roland, who was coming toward her with the child. A little later, as she was going through the passage to the sitting-room, the sounds of music once more floated out toward her. The priest's daughters were at the piano, singing a duet with feeble voices, one of which was more quavering than the other. They were drawling out,—