“How old is my little girl?” Doya answered. “Let me see, thirteen past in September, and not so large as most bairns are at ten; but more than thirteen, aye, more than twenty, in mind and feeling. I have never spoken of my sorrows to any one, but I think my daughter can be my sympathizing friend, so she shall hear it all. It was just ten years ago, on that awful stormy Yule even, of which you have heard folks talk. I was happy then, for your father was kind, my little ones were healthy and beautiful, and I had never looked upon sin in its darker aspects. My little Tronda shall know _all_ the story. On that wild Yule even I had put you and Rassmie to bed, and was hushing Hermann on my knee, when I was startled by hearing a succession of shrieks, which seemed borne to my ear on the wings of an exultant storm fiend. With the baby in my arms, I ran to the door and looked out into the mirkness—just such a night as this,” and Doya shivered, even by the glowing fire; “a tempest of wind, bright gleaming moonlight, and flying clouds. Again and again that dreadful cry arose, and, forgetful of everything, I flew down the slope and stood upon the beach. It was covered with bits of wreck—tables, chairs, trunks, hammocks. Near these, up to his waist in the roaring sea, I found your father. Above us, on the height, gleamed a gigantic fire of peat, and among the surf, close beside me, floated unresistingly the blood-stained form of a sailor—” “Oh! mother, don’t tell me more of that. I know, I know; it is all plain now!” “Yes,” Doya said, in a dreamy apathetic tone; “it’s all plain; _you_ know now what _I_ knew then. Hours afterwards I returned to the house, with Hermann still innocently sleeping on my bosom, and I discovered that in my absence you had waked up, and finding yourself alone, had tried to get out of bed, and in so doing had fallen against something on the floor, where I found you lying helpless and almost unconscious. It was not trows—no, Tronda; on that Yule e’en it was not trows that came to injure you—it was a fiend—your own flesh and blood!” The poor feeble girl shrank away in meek terror from the sudden fierceness of Doya’s words and gesture. She had never seen her gentle, patient mother in that mood before, but it passed away, and a long painful silence fell upon them both.