By degrees all the population of the place crowded in as spectators, and soon Johannes and Pernilla, the bride and bridegroom, made their way through the throng, and, each carrying a decanter, approached the visitors, shook hands with them, and begged that they would drink their health. There was something strangely simple and charming about the whole thing. Such a scene could have been found in no other country save in grand, free old Norway, where false standards of worth are abolished, and where mutual respect and equal rights bind each to each in true brotherhood. The day after the wedding they spent at the Brixdals glacier, rowing all together up the lake, but afterward separating, Frithiof and Cecil walking in advance of the others up the beautiful valley. “There will soon be a high-road to this glacier,” said Frithiof, “but I am glad they are only beginning it now, and that we have this rough path.” And Cecil was glad too. She liked the scramble and the little bit of climbing needed here and there; she loved to feel the strength and protection of Frithiof’s hand as he led her over the rocks and bowlders. At last, after a long walk, they reached a smooth, grassy oasis, shaded by silver birches and bordered by a river, beyond, the Brixdalsbrae gleamed white through the trees, with here and there exquisite shades of blue visible in the ice even at that distance. “This is just like the Land of Beulah,” said Cecil, smiling, “and the glacier is the celestial city. How wonderful those broken pinnacles of ice are!” “Look at these two little streams running side by side for so long and at last joining,” said Frithiof. “They are like our two lives. For so many years you have been to me as we should say _fortrölig_.” “What does that mean?” she asked. “It is untranslatable,” he said. “It is that in which one puts one’s trust and confidence, but more besides. It means exactly what you have always been to me.” Cecil looked down at the little bunch of forget-me-nots and lilies of the valley—the Norwegian national flowers with which Frithiof loved to keep her supplied—and the remembrance of all that she had borne during these five years came back to her, and by contrast made the happy present yet sweeter. “I think,” she said, “I should like Signor Donati to know of our happiness; he was the first who quite understood you.” “Yes, I must write to him,” said Frithiof. “There is no man to whom I owe more.” And thinking of the Italian’s life and character and of his own past, he grew silent. “Do you know,” he said at length, “there is one thing I want you to do for me. I want you to give me back my regard for the Sogne once more. I want, on our way home, just to pass Balholm again.” And so one day it happened that they found themselves on the well-remembered fjord, and coming up on deck when dinner was over, saw that already the familiar scenes of the Frithiof saga were coming into view.