jarred on him, the laughter made him feel ashamed, he could not swallow a morsel, and the wine had a bad taste; everyone seemed as though they were worked by machinery, the house, the bay, the schooner, the mountains, all seemed so overwhelmingly near. A dead calm had set in, so that the whole party were obliged to walk back to town. They started on their walk singing and all together; but almost immediately some of the numerous summer visitors came pouring out from the houses along the road, and, as they were all acquaintances, they stopped to speak. The newcomers joined them and walked on with them; then came others, and each time they stopped, and each time the party broke up and became more divided. In that way Ole was able to keep behind without anyone's noticing it. He could not bear their company and their merriment any longer. Now it was that everything was, as it were, concentrated in Josephine. The being attacked and overthrown by Edward, the shame of this defeat, his wounded religious feelings ... it all was due to the fact that she had not upheld him, neither by word nor by look; had shunned him before, and now had gone and left him! He could not stand that; for she had grown to be so much, too much, for him, he knew it and was not ashamed. That which once had been his highest aim, namely, to be a missionary, had fallen from him like scales, when he saw she no longer cared about it. Whenever his mother had said that he should never become a missionary, his answer was that God must be obeyed before man. But when Josephine, in her strong sort of way, had looked closer into the reality of things, he gave up all his wishes without her needing even to say a word on the subject. He said to himself that he would surely be punished for having so great a love for any one person. But he could not help it. With these and thousands of similar thoughts in his mind, he lagged behind, and turned off from the road up into the wood; there he lay down, waiting until their summer acquaintances should pass back again. He soon turned over, and lay with his face downwards, the cool blades of grass prickling both cheeks and forehead, and the half-wet earth he seemed to inhale suited his mood. All these tiny blades of grass were as nothing in the shade; and so it was with him--through her he reached the sunny side of life, without her all was shadow. A voice within him seemed to say her brother had taken her from him.