As Sigrid ran about in a gay costume, you would scarcely have recognized her. Instead of her plain city clothes, she wore a pretty peasant dress. Many fashionable Swedish mammas let their children wear this dress on holidays in the country. Over her dark blue woolen skirt, Sigrid wore a bright apron, striped in red, blue, yellow, black, and white. The waist was white, with a red silk bodice and shoulder-straps. An embroidered kerchief was folded quaintly about her throat. On her yellow braids rested a tall pointed blue cap, with red pipings and tassels in back. Several other little girls at the dance wore similar dresses. "Erik," said Sigrid, quite late in the evening, as the fiddler stopped to tune up for the next dance, "several times to-night I have seen some one over by the well-sweep. I thought perhaps he was one of the farmers' children. But he hides there as though he was afraid to come out." "Suppose we go over and speak to him," said Erik. When they reached the well-sweep, no one was there. "I know that I saw him only a minute ago. There, I think he is behind that elm-tree. You run this side and I will go the other," said Sigrid. All escape was cut off this time, and Erik dragged the cowering child from his hiding-place. "If he isn't a chimney-sweep!" exclaimed Erik when he saw the boy away from the shadow of the tree. "You needn't be afraid of us, little boy," said Sigrid, kindly. "You can't help it because you have to go down into the chimneys and your face is always black with soot. Don't you want something to eat?" The sooty youngster grinned and shifted his coil of rope from one shoulder to the other. He managed to murmur, "Thank you." Sigrid ran ahead to the kitchen to get some salt herring, rye bread, and coffee. The little sweep left his long broom and rope on the grass, and began to eat greedily. "Aren't you ever afraid to go down inside of a pitch-black chimney?" asked Sigrid. Her interest in the dances had waned for a few minutes, for she had never talked with one of these forlorn little creatures before. The boy shook his head in reply. He was too busy with his salt herring to waste any words. "I am going to ask mother if she will let him stay here all night," said Sigrid. She did not know that this outcast, who was so shy with her, could take very good care of himself. All summer, he wandered through the country, cleaning chimneys. At night, he slept in strange barns or haymows and was very happy and comfortable. Mrs. Lund talked to the lad and told him that he could spend the night in one of the outhouses. The next day was a holiday and no one would want a chimney swept. Sigrid's tender heart was at ease again, and she returned to the dancers. The older people stayed up far into the bright night, but the children soon went to bed. From her chamber window, Sigrid could see the huge bonfires on the hillsides far away. The witches are abroad on Midsummer's Eve, and these fires drive them away.