covered her face! But the dance was raging on, and Ole and his partner were turning out of the crowd. "Vollina! Vollina Harders!" cried Hauke almost aloud, and drew a sigh of relief. But where was Elke? Did she have no partner or had she rejected all because she did not want to dance with Ole? And the music broke off again, and a new dance began; but she was not in sight! There came Ole, still with fat Vollina in his arms! "Well, well," said Hauke; "Jess Harders with his twenty-five acres will soon have to retire too! But where is Elke?" He left the doorpost and crowded farther into the hall; suddenly he was standing in front of her, as she sat with an older girl friend in a corner. "Hauke!" she called, looking up to him with her narrow face; "are you here? I didn't see you dance." "I didn't dance," he replied. "Why not, Hauke?" and half rising she added: "Do you want to dance with me? I didn't let Ole Peters do it; he won't come again!" But Hauke made no move in this direction: "Thank you, Elke," he said; "I don't know how to dance well enough; they might laugh at you; and then--" he stopped short and looked at her with his whole heart in his grey eyes, as if he had to leave it to them to say the rest. "What do you mean, Hauke?" she said in a low voice. "I mean, Elke, the day can't turn out any better for me than it has done already." "Yes," she said, "you have won the game." "Elke!" he reproached her almost inaudibly. Then her face flushed crimson: "Go!" she said; "what do you want?" and she cast down her eyes. But when Elke's friend was being drawn away to the dance by a young man, Hauke said louder: "I thought Elke, I had won something better!" A few seconds longer her eyes searched the floor; then she raised them slowly, and a glance met his so full of the quiet power of her nature that it streamed through him like summer air. "Do as your heart tells you to, Hauke!" she said; "we ought to know each other!" Elke did not dance any more that evening, and then, when both went home, they walked hand in hand. Stars were gleaming in the sky above the silent marshes; a light east wind was blowing and bringing severe cold with it; but the two walked on, without many shawls or coverings, as if it had suddenly turned spring. Hauke had set his mind on something the fit use for which lay in the uncertain future; but he had thought of celebrating with it quietly by himself. So the next Sunday he went into the city to the old goldsmith Andersen and ordered a strong gold ring. "Stretch out your finger for me to measure!" said the old man and seized his ring-finger. "Well," he said; "yours isn't quite so big as they usually are with you people!" But Hauke said: "You had better measure the little finger," and held that one toward him.