Eli listened attentively, and stood silent long after he had finished. At last she exclaimed, "Ah, what a pity for her!"

"I feel as if I had not made that song myself," he said; and then stood like her, thinking over it.

"But that won't be my fate, I hope," she said, after a pause.

"No; I was thinking rather of myself."

"Will it be your fate, then?"

"I don't know; I felt so then."

"How strange." She wrote on the panes again.

The next day, when Arne came into the room to dinner, he went over to the window. Outdoors it was dull and foggy, but indoors, warm and comfortable; and on the window-pane was written with a finger, "Arne, Arne, Arne," and nothing but "Arne," over and over again: it was at that window, Eli stood the evening before.

XI.
ELI'S SICKNESS.

"You always either talk too much or too little," Baard said, at last, looking over to Arne, as though he did not wish him to hear such things, but to leave the room. As, however, the maid-servants stayed, Arne thought he, too, might stay; but he went over to the window. Soon the sick girl revived so far as to be able to look round and recognize those about her; but then also memory returned, and she called wildly for Mathilde, went into hysterics, and sobbed till it was painful to be in the room. The mother tried to soothe her, and the father sat down where she could see him; but she pushed them both from her.

"Go away!" she cried; "I don't like you; go away!"

"Oh, Eli, how can you say you don't like your own parents?" exclaimed the mother.

"No! you're unkind to me, and you take away every pleasure from me!"

"Eli, Eli! don't say such hard things," said the mother, imploringly.

"Yes, mother," she exclaimed; "now I must say it! Yes, mother; you wish to marry me to that bad man; and I won't have him! You shut me up here, where I'm never happy save when I'm going out! And you take away Mathilde from me; the only one in the world I love and long for! Oh, God, what will become of me, now Mathilde is gone!"

"But you haven't been much with her lately," Baard said.

"What did that matter, so long as I could look over to her from that window," the poor girl answered, weeping in a childlike way that Arne had never before seen in any one.

"Why, you couldn't see her there," said Baard.

"Still, I saw the house," she answered; and the mother added passionately, "You don't understand such things, you don't." Then Baard said nothing more.

"Now, I can never again go to the window," said Eli. "When I rose in the morning, I went there; in the evening I sat there in the moonlight: I went there when I could go to no one else. Mathilde! Mathilde?" She writhed in the bed, and went again into hysterics. Baard sat down on a stool a little way from the bed, and continued looking at her.

But Eli did not recover so soon as they expected. Towards evening they saw she would have a serious illness, which had probably been coming upon her for some time; and Arne was called to assist in carrying her up-stairs to her room. She lay quiet and unconscious, looking very pale. The mother sat by the side of her bed, the father stood at the foot, looking at her: afterwards he went to his work. So did Arne; but that night before he went to sleep, he prayed for her; prayed that she who was so young and fair might be happy in this world, and that no one might bar away joy from her.

The next day when Arne came in, he found the father and mother sitting talking together: the mother had been weeping. Arne asked how Eli was; both expected the other to give an answer, and so for some time none was given, but at last the father said, "Well, she's very bad to-day."

Afterwards Arne heard that she had been raving all night, or, as the father said, "talking foolery." She had a violent fever, knew no one, and would not eat, and the parents were deliberating whether they should send for a doctor. When afterwards they both went to the sick-room, leaving Arne behind, he felt as if life and death were struggling together up there, but he was kept outside.

In a few days, however, Eli became a little better. But once when the father was tending her, she took it into her head to have Narrifas, the bird which Mathilde had given her, set beside the bed. Then Baard told her that—as was really the case—in the confusion the bird had been forgotten, and was starved. The mother was just coming in as Baard was saying this, and while yet standing in the doorway, she cried out, "Oh, dear me, what a monster you are, Baard, to tell it to that poor little thing! See, she's fainting again; God forgive you!" When Eli revived she again asked for the bird; said its death was a bad omen for Mathilde; and wished to go to her: then she fainted again. Baard stood looking on till she grew so much worse that he wanted to help, too, in tending her; but the mother pushed him away, and said she would do all herself. Then Baard gave a long sad look at both of them, put his cap straight with both hands, turned aside and went out.

Soon after, the Clergyman and his wife came; for the fever heightened, and grew so violent that they did not know whether it would turn to life or death. The Clergyman as well as his wife spoke to Baard about Eli, and hinted that he was too harsh with her; but when they heard what he had told her about the bird, the Clergyman plainly told him it was very rough, and said he would have her taken to his own house as soon as she was well enough to be moved. The Clergyman's wife would scarcely look at Baard; she wept, and went to sit with the sick one; then sent for the doctor, and came several times a day to carry out his directions. Baard went wandering restlessly about from one place to another in the yard, going oftenest to those places where he could be alone. There he would stand still by the hour together; then, put his cap straight and work again a little.

The mother did not speak to him, and they scarcely looked at each other. He used to go and see Eli several times in the day; he took off his shoes before he went up-stairs, left his cap outside, and opened the door cautiously. When he came in, Birgit would turn her head, but take no notice of him, and then sit just as before, stooping forwards, with her head on her hands, looking at Eli, who lay still and pale, unconscious of all that was passing around her. Baard would stand awhile at the foot of the bed and look at them both, but say nothing: once when Eli moved as though she were waking, he stole away directly as quietly as he had come.

Arne often thought words had been exchanged between man and wife and parents and child which had been long gathering, and would be long remembered. He longed to go away, though he wished to know before he went what would be the end of Eli's illness; but then he thought he might always hear about her even after he had left; and so he went to Baard telling him he wished to go home: the work which he came to do was completed. Baard was sitting outdoors on a chopping-block, scratching in the snow with a stick: Arne recognized the stick: it was the one which had fastened the weather-vane.

"Well, perhaps it isn't worth your while to stay here now; yet I feel as if I don't like you to go away, either," said Baard, without looking up. He said no more; neither did Arne; but after a while he walked away to do some work, taking for granted that he was to remain at Böen.

Some time after, when he was called to dinner, he saw Baard still sitting on the block. He went over to him, and asked how Eli was.

"I think she's very bad to-day," Baard said.

"I see the mother's weeping."

Arne felt as if somebody asked him to sit down, and he seated himself opposite Baard on the end of a felled tree.

"I've often thought of your father lately," Baard said so unexpectedly that Arne did not know how to answer.

"You know, I suppose, what was between us?"

"Yes, I know."

"Well, you know, as may be expected, only one half of the story, and think I'm greatly to blame."

"You have, I dare say, settled that affair with your God, as surely as my father has done so," Arne said, after a pause.

"Well, some people might think so," Baard answered. "When I found this stick, I felt it was so strange that you should come here and unloose the weather-vane. As well now as later, I thought." He had taken off his cap, and sat silently looking at it.

"I was about fourteen years old when I became acquainted with your father, and he was of the same age. He was very wild, and he couldn't bear any one to be above him in anything. So he always had a grudge against me because I stood first, and he, second, when we were confirmed. He often offered to fight me, but we never came to it; most likely because neither of us felt sure who would beat. And a strange thing it is, that although he fought every day, no accident came from it; while the first time I did, it turned out as badly as could be; but, it's true, I had been wanting to fight long enough.

"Nils fluttered about all the girls, and they, about him. There was only one I would have, and her he took away from me at every dance, at every wedding, and at every party; it was she who is now my wife.... Often, as I sat there, I felt a great mind to try my strength upon him for this thing; but I was afraid I should lose, and I knew if I did, I should lose her, too. Then, when everybody had gone, I would lift the weights he had lifted, and kick the beam he had kicked; but the next time he took the girl from me, I was afraid to meddle with him, although once, when he was flirting with her just in my face, I went up to a tall fellow who stood by and threw him against the beam, as if in fun. And Nils grew pale, too, when he saw it.

"Even if he had been kind to her; but he was false to her again and again. I almost believe, too, she loved him all the more every time. Then the last thing happened. I thought now it must either break or bear. The Lord, too, would not have him going about any longer; and so he fell a little more heavily than I meant him to do. I never saw him afterwards."

They sat silent for a while; then Baard went on:

"I once more made my offer. She said neither yes nor no; but I thought she would like me better afterwards. So we were married. The wedding was kept down in the valley, at the house of one of her aunts, whose property she inherited. We had plenty when we started, and it has now increased. Our estates lay side by side, and when we married they were thrown into one, as I always, from a boy, thought they might be. But many other things didn't turn out as I expected." He was silent for several minutes; and Arne thought he wept; but he did not.

"In the beginning of our married life, she was quiet and very sad. I had nothing to say to comfort her, and so I was silent. Afterwards, she began sometimes to take to these fidgeting ways which you have, I dare say, noticed in her; yet it was a change, and so I said nothing then, either. But one really happy day, I haven't known ever since I was married, and that's now twenty years...."

He broke the stick in two pieces; and then sat for a while looking at them.

"When Eli grew bigger, I thought she would be happier among strangers than at home. It was seldom I wished to carry out my own will in anything, and whenever I did, it generally turned out badly; so it was in this case. The mother longed after her child, though only the lake lay between them; and afterwards I saw, too, that Eli's training at the parsonage was in some ways not the right thing for her; but then it was too late: now I think she likes neither father nor mother."

He had taken off his cap again; and now his long hair hung down over his eyes; he stroked it back with both hands, and put on his cap as if he were going away; but when, as he was about to rise, he turned towards the house, he checked himself and added, while looking up at the bed-room window.

"I thought it better that she and Mathilde shouldn't see each other to say good-bye: that, too, was wrong. I told her the wee bird was dead; for it was my fault, and so I thought it better to confess; but that again was wrong. And so it is with everything: I've always meant to do for the best, but it has always turned out for the worst; and now things have come to such a pass that both wife and daughter speak ill of me, and I'm going here lonely."

A servant-girl called out to them that the dinner was becoming cold. Baard rose. "I hear the horses neighing; I think somebody has forgotten them," he said, and went away to the stable to give them some hay.

Arne rose, too; he felt as if he hardly knew whether Baard had been speaking or not.

XII.
A GLIMPSE OF SPRING.

Arne yielded and went. He had not seen Eli since the day he helped to carry her up-stairs; he thought she must be much altered, and he felt half afraid to see her. But when he gently opened the door and went in, he found the room quite dark, and he could see no one. He stopped at the door-way.

"Who is it?" Eli asked in a clear, low voice.

"It's Arne Kampen," he said in a gentle, guarded tone, so that his words might fall softly.

"It was very kind of you to come."

"How are you, Eli?"

"Thanks, I'm much better now."

"Won't you sit down, Arne?" she added after a while, and Arne felt his way to a chair at the foot of the bed. "It did me good to hear you singing; won't you sing a little to me up here?"

"If I only knew anything you would like."

She was silent a while: then she said, "Sing a hymn." And he sang one: it was the confirmation hymn. When he had finished he heard her weeping, and so he was afraid to sing again; but in a little while she said, "Sing one more." And he sang another: it was the one which is generally sung while the catechumens are standing in the aisle.

"How many things I've thought over while I've been lying here," Eli said. He did not know what to answer; and he heard her weeping again in the dark. A clock that was ticking on the wall warned for striking, and then struck. Eli breathed deeply several times, as if she would lighten her breast, and then she said, "One knows so little; I knew neither father nor mother. I haven't been kind to them; and now it seems so sad to hear that hymn."

When we talk in the darkness, we speak more faithfully than when we see each other's face; and we also say more.

"It does one good to hear you talk so," Arne replied, just remembering what she had said when she was taken ill.

She understood what he meant. "If now this had not happened to me," she went on, "God only knows how long I might have gone before I found mother."

"She has talked matters over with you lately, then?"

"Yes, every day; she has done hardly anything else."

"Then, I'm sure you've heard many things."

"You may well say so."

"I think she spoke of my father?"

"Yes."

"She remembers him still?"

"She remembers him."

"He wasn't kind to her."

"Poor mother!"

"Yet he was worst to himself."

They were silent; and Arne had thoughts which he could not utter. Eli was the first to link their words again.

"You are said to be like your father."

"People say so," he replied evasively.

She did not notice the tone of his voice, and so, after a while she returned to the subject. "Could he, too, make songs?"

"No."

"Sing a song to me ... one that you've made yourself."

"I have none," he said; for it was not his custom to confess he had himself composed the songs he sang.

"I'm sure you have; and I'm sure, too, you'll sing one of them when I ask you."

What he had never done for any one else, he now did for her, as he sang the following song,—

That song nearly took her breath away. He, too, remained silent after it, as though he had sung more than he could say.

Darkness has a strong influence over those who are sitting in it and dare not speak: they are never so near each other as then. If she only turned on the pillow, or moved her hand on the blanket, or breathed a little more heavily, he heard it.

"Arne, couldn't you teach me to make songs?"

"Did you never try?"

"Yes, I have, these last few days; but I can't manage it."

"What, then, did you wish to have in them?"

"Something about my mother, who loved your father so dearly."

"That's a sad subject."

"Yes, indeed it is; and I have wept over it."

"You shouldn't search for subjects; they come of themselves."

"How do they come?"

"Just as other dear things come—unexpectedly."

They were both silent. "I wonder, Arne, you're longing to go away; you who have such a world of beauty within yourself."

"Do you know I am longing?"

She did not answer, but lay still a few moments as if in thought.

"Arne, you mustn't go away," she said; and the words came warm to his heart.

"Well, sometimes I have less mind to go."

"Your mother must love you much, I'm sure. I must see your mother."

"Go over to Kampen, when you're well again."

And all at once, he fancied her sitting in the bright room at Kampen, looking out on the mountains; his chest began to heave, and the blood rushed to his face.

"It's warm in here," he said, rising.

She heard him rise. "Are you going, Arne?" He sat down again.

"You must come over to see us oftener; mother's so fond of you."

"I should like to come myself, too; ... but still I must have some errand."

Eli lay silent for a while, as if she was turning over something in her mind. "I believe," she said, "mother has something to ask you about." ...

They both felt the room was becoming very hot; he wiped his brow, and he heard her rise in the bed. No sound could be heard either in the room or down-stairs, save the ticking of the clock on the wall. There was no moon, and the darkness was deep; when he looked through the green window, it seemed to him as if he was looking into a wood; when he looked towards Eli he could see nothing, but his thoughts went over to her, and then his heart throbbed till he could himself hear its beating. Before his eyes flickered bright sparks; in his ears came a rushing sound; still faster throbbed his heart: he felt he must rise or say something. But then she exclaimed,

"How I wish it were summer!"

"That it were summer?" And he heard again the sound of the cattle-bells, the horn from the mountains, and the singing from the valleys; and saw the fresh green foliage, the Swart-water glittering in the sunbeams, the houses rocking in it, and Eli coming out and sitting on the shore, just as she did that evening. "If it were summer," she said, "and I were sitting on the hill, I think I could sing a song."

He smiled gladly, and asked, "What would it be about?"

"About something bright; about—well, I hardly know what myself." ...

"Tell me, Eli!" He rose in glad excitement; but, on second thoughts, sat down again.

"No; not for all the world!" she said, laughing.

"I sang to you when you asked me."

"Yes, I know you did; but I can't tell you this; no! no!"

"Eli, do you think I would laugh at the little verse you have made?"

"No, I don't think you would, Arne; but it isn't anything I've made myself."

"Oh, it's by somebody else then?"

"Yes."

"Then, you can surely say it to me."

"No, no, I can't; don't ask me again, Arne!"

The last words were almost inaudible; it seemed as if she had hidden her head under the bedclothes.

"Eli, now you're not kind to me as I was to you," he said, rising.

"But, Arne, there's a difference ... you don't understand me ... but it was ... I don't know ... another time ... don't be offended with me, Arne! don't go away from me!" She began to weep.

"Eli, what's the matter?" It came over him like sunshine. "Are you ill?" Though he asked, he did not believe she was. She still wept; he felt he must draw nearer or go quite away. "Eli." He listened. "Eli."

"Yes."

She checked her weeping. But he did not know what to say more, and was silent.

"What do you want?" she whispered, half turning towards him.

"It's something—"

His voice trembled, and he stopped.

"What is it?"

"You mustn't refuse ... I would ask you...."

"Is it the song?"

"No ... Eli, I wish so much...." He heard her breathing fast and deeply ... "I wish so much ... to hold one of your hands."

She did not answer; he listened intently—drew nearer, and clasped a warm little hand which lay on the coverlet.

Then steps were heard coming up-stairs; they came nearer and nearer; the door was opened; and Arne unclasped his hand. It was the mother, who came in with a light. "I think you're sitting too long in the dark," she said, putting the candlestick on the table. But neither Eli nor Arne could bear the light; she turned her face to the pillow, and he shaded his eyes with his hand. "Well, it pains a little at first, but it soon passes off," said the mother.

Arne looked on the floor for something which he had not dropped, and then went down-stairs.

The next day, he heard that Eli intended to come down in the afternoon. He put his tools together, and said good-bye. When she came down he had gone.

XIII.
MARGIT CONSULTS THE CLERGYMAN.

"Worse than ever. I can hardly think he'll even stay with me till spring comes up here."

"But he has promised never to go away from you."

"That's true; but, dear me! he must now be his own master; and if his mind's set upon going away, go, he must. But whatever will become of me then?"

"Well, after all, I don't think he will leave you."

"Well, perhaps not; but still, if he isn't happy at home? am I then to have it upon my conscience that I stand in his way? Sometimes I feel as if I ought even to ask him to leave."

"How do you know he is longing now, more than ever?"

"Oh,—by many things. Since the middle of the winter, he hasn't worked out in the parish a single day; but he has been to the town three times, and has stayed a long while each time. He scarcely ever talks now while he is at work, but he often used to do. He'll sit for hours alone at the little up-stairs window, looking towards the ravine, and away over the mountains; he'll sit there all Sunday afternoon, and often when it's moonlight he sits there till late in the night."

"Does he never read to you?"

"Yes, of course, he reads and sings to me every Sunday; but he seems rather in a hurry, save now and then when he gives almost too much of the thing."

"Does he never talk over matters with you then?"

"Well, yes; but it's so seldom that I sit and weep alone between whiles. Then I dare say he notices it, for he begins talking, but it's only about trifles; never about anything serious."

The Clergyman walked up and down the room; then he stopped and asked, "But why, then, don't you talk to him about his matters?"

For a long while she gave no answer; she sighed several times, looked downwards and sideways, doubled up her handkerchief, and at last said, "I've come here to speak to you, father, about something that's a great burden on my mind."

"Speak freely; it will relieve you."

"Yes, I know it will; for I've borne it alone now these many years, and it grows heavier each year."

"Well, what is it, my good Margit?"

There was a pause, and then she said, "I've greatly sinned against my son."

She began weeping. The Clergyman came close to her; "Confess it," he said; "and we will pray together that it may be forgiven."

Margit sobbed and wiped her eyes, but began weeping again when she tried to speak. The Clergyman tried to comfort her, saying she could not have done anything very sinful, she doubtless was too hard upon herself, and so on. But Margit continued weeping, and could not begin her confession till the Clergyman seated himself by her side, and spoke still more encouragingly to her. Then after a while she began, "The boy was ill-used when a child; and so he got this mind for travelling. Then he met with Christian—he who has grown so rich over there where they dig gold. Christian gave him so many books that he got quite a scholar; they used to sit together in the long evenings; and when Christian went away Arne wanted to go after him. But just at that time, the father died, and the lad promised never to leave me. But I was like a hen that's got a duck's egg to brood; when my duckling had burst his shell, he would go out on the wide water, and I was left on the bank, calling after him. If he didn't go away himself, yet his heart went away in his songs, and every morning I expected to find his bed empty.

"Then a letter from foreign parts came for him, and I felt sure it must be from Christian. God forgive me, but I kept it back! I thought there would be no more, but another came; and, as I had kept the first, I thought I must keep the second, too. But, dear me! it seemed as if they would burn a hole through the box where I had put them; and my thoughts were there from as soon as I opened my eyes in the morning till late at night when I shut them. And then,—did you ever hear of anything worse!—a third letter came. I held it in my hand a quarter of an hour; I kept it in my bosom three days, weighing in my mind whether I should give it to him or put it with the others; but then I thought perhaps it would lure him away from me, and so I couldn't help putting it with the others. But now I felt miserable every day, not only about the letters in the box, but also for fear another might come. I was afraid of everybody who came to the house; when we were sitting together inside, I trembled whenever I heard the door go, for fear it might be somebody with a letter, and then he might get it. When he was away in the parish, I went about at home thinking he might perhaps get a letter while there, and then it would tell him about those that had already come. When I saw him coming home, I used to look at his face while he was yet a long way off, and, oh, dear! how happy I felt when he smiled; for then I knew he had got no letter. He had grown so handsome; like his father, only fairer, and more gentle-looking. And, then, he had such a voice; when he sat at the door in the evening-sun, singing towards the mountain ridge, and listening to the echo, I felt that live without him. I never could. If I only saw him, or knew he was somewhere near, and he seemed pretty happy, and would only give me a word now and then, I wanted nothing more on earth, and I wouldn't have shed one tear less.

"But just when he seemed to be getting on better with people, and felt happier among them, there came a message from the post-office that a fourth letter had come; and in it were two hundred dollars! I thought I should have fell flat down where I stood: what could I do? The letter, I might get rid of, 'twas true; but the money? For two or three nights I couldn't sleep for it; a little while I left it up-stairs, then, in the cellar behind a barrel, and once I was so overdone that I laid it in the window so that he might find it. But when I heard him coming, I took it back again. At last, however, I found a way: I gave him the money and told him it had been put out at interest in my mother's lifetime. He laid it out upon the land, just as I thought he would; and so it wasn't wasted. But that same harvest-time, when he was sitting at home one evening, he began talking about Christian, and wondering why he had so clean forgotten him.

"Now again the wound opened, and the money burned me so that I was obliged to go out of the room. I had sinned, and yet my sin had answered no end. Since then, I have hardly dared to look into his eyes, blessed as they are.

"The mother who has sinned against her own child is the most miserable of all mothers; ... and yet I did it only out of love.... And so, I dare say, I shall be punished accordingly by the loss of what I love most. For since the middle of the winter, he has again taken to singing the tune that he used to sing when he was longing to go away; he has sung it ever since he was a lad, and whenever I hear it I grow pale. Then I feel I could give up all for him; and only see this." She took from her bosom a piece of paper, unfolded it and gave it to the Clergyman. "He now and then writes something here; I think it's some words to that tune.... I brought it with me; for I can't myself read such small writing ... will you look and see if there isn't something written about his going away...."

There was only one whole verse on the paper. For the second verse, there were only a few half-finished lines, as if the song was one he had forgotten, and was now coming into his memory again, line by line. The first verse ran thus,—

"Is there anything about his going away?" asked Margit.

"Yes, it is about that," replied the Clergyman, putting the paper down.

"Wasn't I sure of it! Ah me! I knew the tune!" She sat with folded hands, looking intently and anxiously into the Clergyman's face, while tear after tear fell down her cheeks.

The Clergyman knew no more what to do in the matter than she did. "Well, I think the lad must be left alone in this case," he said. "Life can't be made different for his sake; but what he will find in it must depend upon himself; now, it seems, he wishes to go away in search of life's good."

"But isn't that just what the old crone did?"

"The old crone?"

"Yes; she who went away to fetch the sunshine, instead of making windows in the wall to let it in."

The Clergyman was much astonished at Margit's words, and so he had been before, when she came speak to him on this subject; but, indeed, she had thought of hardly anything else for eight years.

"Do you think he'll go away? what am I to do? and the money? and the letters?" All these questions crowded upon her at once.

"Well, as to the letters, that wasn't quite right. Keeping back what belonged to your son, can't be justified. But it was still worse to make a fellow Christian appear in a bad light when he didn't deserve it; and especially as he was one whom Arne was so fond of, and who loved him so dearly in return. But we will pray God to forgive you; we will both pray."

Margit still sat with her hands folded, and her head bent down.

"How I should pray him to forgive me, if I only knew he would stay!" she said: surely, she was confounding our Lord with Arne. The Clergyman, however, appeared as if he did not notice it.

"Do you intend to confess it to him directly?" he asked.

She looked down, and said in a low voice, "I should much like to wait a little if I dared."

The Clergyman turned aside with a smile, and asked, "Don't you believe your sin becomes greater, the longer you delay confessing it?"

She pulled her handkerchief about with both hands, folded it into a very small square, and tried to fold it into a still smaller one, but could not.

"If I confess about the letters, I'm afraid he'll go away."

"Then, you dare not rely upon our Lord?"

"Oh, yes, I do, indeed," she said hurriedly; and then she added in a low voice, "but still, if he were to go away from me?"

"Then, I see you are more afraid of his going away than of continuing to sin?"

Margit had unfolded her handkerchief again; and now she put it to her eyes, for she began weeping. The Clergyman remained for a while looking at her silently; then he went on, "Why, then, did you tell me all this, if it was not to lead to anything?" He waited long, but she did not answer. "Perhaps you thought your sin would become less when you had confessed it?"

"Yes, I did," she said, almost in a whisper, while her head bent still lower upon her breast.

The Clergyman smiled and rose. "Well, well, my good Margit, take courage; I hope all will yet turn out for the best."

"Do you think so?" she asked, looking up; and a sad smile passed over her tear-marked face.

"Yes, I do; I believe God will no longer try you. You will have joy in your old age, I am sure."

"If I might only keep the joy I have!" she said; and the Clergyman thought she seemed unable to fancy any greater happiness than living in that constant anxiety. He smiled and filled his pipe.

"If we had but a little girl, now, who could take hold on him, then I'm sure he would stay."

"You may be sure I've thought of that," she said, shaking her head.

"Well, there's Eli Böen; she might be one who would please him."

"You may be sure I've thought of that." She rocked the upper part of her body backwards and forwards.

"If we could contrive that they might oftener see each other here at the parsonage?"

"You may be sure I've thought of that!" She clapped her hands and looked at the Clergyman with a smile all over her face. He stopped while he was lighting his pipe.

"Perhaps this, after all, was what brought you here to-day?"

She looked down, put two fingers into the folded handkerchief, and pulled out one corner of it.

"Ah, well, God help me, perhaps it was this I wanted."

The Clergyman walked up and down, and smiled. "Perhaps, too, you came for the same thing the last time you were here?"

She pulled out the corner of the handkerchief still farther, and hesitated awhile. "Well, as you ask me, perhaps I did—yes."

The Clergyman went on smoking. "Then, too, it was to carry this point that you confessed at last the thing you had on your conscience."

She spread out the handkerchief to fold it up smoothly again. "No; ah, no; that weighed so heavily upon me, I felt I must tell it to you, father."

"Well, well, my dear Margit, we will talk no more about it."

Then, while he was walking up and down, he suddenly added, "Do you think you would of yourself have come out to me with this wish of yours?"

"Well,—I had already come out with so much, that I dare say this, too, would have come out at last."

The Clergyman laughed, but he did not tell her what he thought. After a while he stood still. "Well, we will manage this matter for you, Margit," he said.

"God bless you for it!" She rose to go, for she understood he had now said all he wished to say.

"And we will look after them a little."

"I don't know how to thank you enough," she said, taking his hand and courtesying.

"God be with you!" he replied.

She wiped her eyes with the handkerchief, went towards the door, courtesied again, and said, "Good bye," while she slowly opened and shut it. But so lightly as she went towards Kampen that day, she had not gone for many, many years. When she had come far enough to see the thick smoke curling up cheerfully from the chimney, she blessed the house, the whole place, the Clergyman and Arne,—and remembered they were going to have her favorite dish, smoked ham, for dinner.