Rönnaug wished to copy the verses, and Magnhild offered her a leaf from her pocket-book. As this was produced a letter fell from it. Magnhild was surprised, but she soon remembered that she had received the letter by mail the evening before, an hour after her husband's arrival. Wholly absorbed in her conflict with him, she had placed it for the time in her pocket-book. She never received letters, so she could not imagine from whom this could come. The two travelers from America did not notice that the letter bore a foreign stamp, but Magnhild saw this at once. She tore open the letter; it was written in a delicate hand, on fine paper, and was quite long. It was headed "Munich," and the signature was--did she read aright?--"Hans Tande." She folded the letter again, without knowing what she was doing, while the hot blushes spread over face and neck. The two others acted as though they had observed nothing; Rönnaug busied herself with copying the verses. They drove rapidly on, and left Magnhild to her reflections. But her embarrassment increased to such a degree that it became positive torture to her to sit in the carriage with the others. She meekly begged to be allowed to get out and walk a little distance. Rönnaug smiled and ordered the coachman to stop,--they had just reached a level plain where the horses could rest a while. When the travelers had alighted, she took Magnhild by the hand and led her toward a thicket a few steps behind them. "Come--go in there now and read your letter!" said she. When Magnhild found herself alone in the wood she stood still. Her agitation had compelled her to pause. She peered about her, as though fearing even in this lonely spot the presence of people. The sun played here and there on the yellow pine needles that were strewn about, on the fallen decayed branches, on the dark green moss covering the stones, on the heather in the glades. Around her all was profoundly still; from the sunny margin of the wood there floated toward her the twittering of a solitary bird, the babbling of the child, and Rönnaug's laughter, which rang with the utmost clearness through the trees.