When Milford returned at noontime the hired man gave him a letter. It was from Gunhild. In a Michigan community she had found, not a field, indeed, but a garden-patch for her labors. "The pay is very small, but it is an encouragement," she said. "It has been hard to find a place, and I was willing to accept almost anything. The people are not awake to art; to them life demands something sterner, and I have come to believe that everything but a necessity is a waste of time, but then what I do is a necessity, and I find my excuse to myself in that. I had a letter from Mrs. Goodwin a few days ago, and I also met a woman who had seen her recently. She has made another discovery, a musical genius on the piano, a girl whom she found in a mission school. I take this to mean that she has put me aside, for with her the new blots out the old. And this makes my success as a teacher all the more----" Here she had erased several words and substituted "needful." "She will never remind me of my obligation, I am sure, but I cannot forget it. I feel that she was disappointed in me, but it is not my fault, for I all the time told her that I was not to be great. I will make no false modesty to hide that I have thought of you many times. I dreamed of you in English. This may not mean much to you, but I nearly always dream in Norwegian, and persons who speak English to me when I am awake, speak Norwegian in my dreams. But you did not. I thought I saw you standing in a ditch and the rain was falling, and it was night. I ran to you, and you spoke the name they used to call you in the West. It was the ditch you helped me over. I had been thinking about it in the day, and was sorry because the sunflowers must be all dead. I had to send some money to my uncle. He lost his place on the street-car, but they have taken him back. He has five children and cannot afford to be idle. Oh, that was a beautiful summer out there. Do you remember the night at the house where they said the spirits are? I can see you now, kneeling on the floor. I will be bold and say that I wanted to kneel beside you. Will there ever come another summer like that? It was my first rest. But I cannot hope for another soon. Mrs. Goodwin will not want me to come out with her next year. She will have with her the musical genius then. But we shall see each other. I feel that you spoke the truth when you said that all--something could not keep us apart. I board at the house of a man who had this season a large potato field. I went out when the digging time was at hand, and behind the plow I saw a woman from Norway and I wanted to help her, but it would not do for these people to know that I have ever worked in a field. The teacher of the public school spoke of me as the graceful young woman, and I thought that it might please you to know that he had said it." "Please me?" said Milford, talking aloud to himself. "Blast his impudence, what right----" "Anything wrong, Bill?" Mitchell inquired.