“What!” cried Fru Grönvold. “Did not that Swedish botanist talk to you incessantly? Does not the English officer follow you about whenever he has the opportunity?” “The botanist talked because we had a subject in common,” replied Sigrid. “And probably the officer prefers talking to me because my English is more fluent than Karen’s.” “And that I suppose was the reason that you must be the one to teach him the _spring dans_? And the one to sing him the ‘Bridal Song of the Hardanger’?” “Oh!” exclaimed Sigrid, with an impatient little stamp of the foot, “am I to be forever thinking of this wretched scheming and match-making? Can I not even try to amuse a middle-aged Englishman who is disappointed of his reindeer, and finds himself stranded in a dreary little inn with a handful of foreigners? I have only been courteous to him—nothing more; and if I like talking to him it is merely because he comes from England.” “I don’t wish to be hard on you,” said Fru Grönvold, “but naturally I have the feelings of a mother, and do not like to see Karen eclipsed. I accuse you of nothing worse, my dear, than a slight forwardness—a little deficiency in tact. There is no occasion for anger on your part.” Sigrid bit her lip hard to keep back the retort that she longed to make, and they walked in silence toward the little cluster of wooden buildings on the hill-side, the lowest of which contained the bedrooms, while further up the hill the kitchen and dining-room stood on one side of the open courtyard, and on the other the prettily arranged public sitting-room. In warm weather Hjerkin is a little paradise, but on this windy day, under a leaden sky, it seemed the most depressing place on earth. “I shall go in and write to Frithiof,” said Sigrid, at length. And escaping gladly from Fru Grönvold, she ran up to her room. “Here we are at Hjerkin,” she wrote, “for a month, and it is more desolate than I can describe to you, uncle and Oscar out shooting all day long, and scarcely a soul to speak to, for most of the English have been driven away by the bad weather, and two girls from Stockholm who were here for their health are leaving this afternoon, unable to bear the dullness any longer. If something doesn’t happen soon I think I shall grow desperate. But surely something will happen. We can’t be meant to go on in this wretched way, apart from each other. I am disappointed that you think there is no chance of any opening for me in London. If it were not for Swanhild I think I should try for work—any sort of work except teaching—at Christiania. But I can’t bear to leave her, and uncle would object to my trying for anything of the sort in Bergen. I can’t help thinking of the old times when we were children, and of the summer holidays then. Don’t you remember when we had the island all to ourselves, and used to rush down the fir-hill, and frighten poor old Gro?” * * * * *