Have you ever read out a joke that seemed excruciatingly funny, or repeated a line of poetry that struck you as being inexpressibly tender, and found that your listener was not impressed as you were? I have; and so it may be that this will bore you, though it was momentous enough to me. I had been up in Norway to receive a little legacy that fell to me; and though my summer visits were not infrequent, I had never been up there in mid-winter, at least not since I was a little child tobogganing with Hans Jörgen (Hans Jörgen Dahl is his full name), and that was long ago. We are connected. Hans Jörgen and I were both orphans, and a cousin (we called her aunt) was one of our guardians. He was her favorite; and when an uncle on my mother's side (she was Cornish born; my father, a ship captain, met her at Dartmouth) offered to take me, I think she was glad to let me go. I was a lanky girl of eleven, and Hans Jörgen and I were sweethearts. We were to be married some day,--we had arranged all that,--and he reminded me of it when I was going away, and gave me a silver perfume-box, with a gilt crown on top, that had belonged to his mother; and later when he was going to America he came to see me first. He was a long, freckled hobbledehoy, with just the same true eyes and shock head. I was, I thought, quite grown up. I had passed my "intermediate," and was condescending as girls are; but I don't think it impressed Hans Jörgen much, for he gave me a little ring, turquoise forget-me-nots with enamelled leaves and a motto inside (a quaint old thing that belonged to a sainted aunt, they keep things a long time in Norway), and said he would send for me; but of course I laughed at that. He has grown to be a great man out in Cincinnati, and waits always. I wrote later and told him I thought marriage a vocation, and I hadn't one for it; but Hans Jörgen took no notice,--just said he'd wait. He understands waiting, I'll say that for Hans Jörgen. I have been alone now for five years, working away, though I was left enough to keep me before. Someway I have not the same gladness in my work of late years. Working for one's self seems a poor end, even if one puts by money. But this has little or nothing to do with the white elf, has it?