"And I'm sure, miss, if you'll give me what notice you can, I'll do my very best to have the rooms vacant again," said the good-hearted Irish landlady, who kept dropping in at the most inconvenient moments to offer assistance and shed a few tears. "It's little trouble you've given, and many's the time it's done me good to meet your bright face on the stair." "You may be quite sure that if I am ever in London for any length of time, I shall try very hard to secure my old quarters," said Mona cordially; "but it is impossible to tell what the future may bring;" and she sighed. If lodgers could be made to order, Mrs O'Connor would fain have had hers a little more communicative. She was thirsting for an explanation of the fine carriage that had driven up to the door on Wednesday afternoon, and of the beautiful lady who had seemed so disappointed to find Miss Maclean out. When the same equipage disappeared with Mona on Monday morning, and Mrs O'Connor had leisure to reflect on the apparent finality of this departure, in the light of the alternate high spirits and profound depression which had not altogether escaped her observation, she came to the conclusion that Miss Maclean was meditating a good match, but that she did not quite know her own mind. CHAPTER VI. THE NÆRODAL. "Don't talk to me of 'kariols' and 'stolkjaerres,'" said Sir Douglas hotly. "I never got such an infernal shaking in my life." Mona laughed. "Do you know," she said, "I imagine that 'kariols' and 'stolkjaerres' have done more to make or mar Norway than all its mountains and fjords. They are so picturesque and characteristic, and they make up so neatly into wooden toys and silver ornaments. Scenery and sunsets are all very well, but it is amazing how grown-up children love to carry home a piece of cake from the party, and in this case the piece of cake serves as an excellent advertisement." "Fill your pockets with cake by all means, but let us have more substantial diet while we are here. You girls may do as you like; for the future, Maud and I travel in a calesch." They were all sitting on the grassy mounds and hillocks near the edge of the precipice, above the Nærodal at Stalheim. The air was full of the fragrance of spicy herbs and shrubs, and the ceaseless buzz of insects in the mellow sunshine could be heard above the distant unvarying roar of the waterfalls. In front lay the "narrow valley," bounded on either side by a range of barren, precipitous hills, half lost in shadow, half glowing in purple and gold. Some thousand feet below, like a white scar, lay the river, spanned by tiny bridges, over which horses and vehicles crawled like flies. Behind, the pretty, gimcrack hotel raised its insolent little gables in the midst of the great solitude; and beyond that, hills and mountains rose and fell like an endless series of mighty billows.