His surprise on entering his house was not small. Everything in order! And the room filled with a pleasant perfume. Magnhild came--it was a lady who stood before him. Her whole countenance was changed. It had opened out like a flower, and the soft, fair hair floating about neck and drooping shoulders threw a lustre over head and form. She paused on the threshold, her hand on the door-knob. Skarlie had seated himself in the broad chair in the corner, and was wiping the perspiration from his bald head. As soon as his first astonishment was over, he said: "Good-day!" No reply. But Magnhild came in now, and closed the door after her. "How fine it looks here," said he. "Is it your lodger"-- He puckered up his lips, his eyes grew small. Magnhild looked at him coldly. He continued more good-naturedly,-- "Did he make your new dress, too?" Now she laughed. "How are you getting on?" she asked, presently. "I am nearly through." He had acquired the comfortable air of a man who is conscious of doing well in the world. "It is warm here," said he; the sun had just burst forth after a long rain, and was scorching, as it can be only in September. He stretched out his legs, as far as the crooked one permitted, and lay back, letting his large hands hang down over the arms of the chair, exact pictures of the web-feet of some sea-monster. "Why are you staring at me?" asked he, with his most comical grimace. Magnhild turned with a searching glance toward the window. The room had become filled at once with the peculiar saddler odor which attended Skarlie: Magnhild was about to open the window, but thinking better of it stepped back again. "Where is your lodger?" "He is across the street." "Are there lodgers there, too?" "Yes, a Fru Bang with her daughter." "So they are the people you associate with?" "Yes!" He rose, took off his coat, and also laid aside his vest and cravat. Then he filled his cutty with tobacco, lighted it, and sat down again, this time with an elbow resting on one arm of the chair and smoking. With a roguish smile he contemplated his other half. "And so you are going to be a lady, Magnhild?" She did not answer. "Aye!--Well, I suppose I shall have to begin to make a gentleman of myself." She turned toward him with an amused countenance. His chest, thickly covered with dark red hair, was bare, for his shirt was open; his face was sunburned, his bald head white. "The deuce! how you stare at me! I am not nearly as good-looking as your lodger, I can well believe. Hey?" "Will you have something to eat?" asked she. "I dined on the steamer." "But to drink?" She went out after a bottle of beer, and placed it with a glass on the table beside him. He poured out the beer and drank, looking across the street as he did so. "That's a deuce of a woman! Is _that_ the lady?" Magnhild grew fiery red; for she too saw Fru Bang standing at the window, staring at the half-disrobed Skarlie.