He spread his jacket on the grass, and sat down on the spot where he had sat the night before. Brita looked at him in surprise and remained silent; she didn’t know how to interpret this second visit. “You are very handsome,” he said, suddenly, with a gravity which left no doubt as to his sincerity. “Do you think so?” she answered, with a merry laugh. He appeared to her almost a child, and it never entered her mind to feel offended. On the contrary, she was not sure but that she felt pleased. “I have thought of you ever since yesterday,” he continued, with the same imperturbable manner. “And if you were not angry with me, I thought I would like to look at you once more. You are so different from other folks.” “God bless your foolish talk,” cried Brita, with a fresh burst of merriment. “No, indeed I am not angry with you; I should just as soon think of being angry with--with that calf,” she added for want of another comparison. “You think I don’t know much,” he stammered. “And I don’t.” The sad smile again settled on his countenance. A feeling of guilt sent the blood throbbing through her veins. She saw that she had done him injustice. He evidently possessed more sense, or at least a finer instinct, than she had given him credit for. “Halvard,” she faltered, “if I have offended you, I assure you I didn’t mean to do it; and a thousand times I beg your pardon.” “You haven’t offended me, Brita,” answered he, blushing like a girl. “You are the first one who doesn’t make me feel that I am not so wise as other folks.” She felt it her duty to be open and confiding with him in return; and in order not to seem ungenerous, or rather to put them on an equal footing by giving him also a peep into her heart, she told him about her daily work, about the merry parties at her father’s house, and about the lusty lads who gathered in their halls to dance the Halling and the spring-dance. He listened attentively while she spoke, gazing earnestly into her face, but never interrupting her. In his turn he described to her in his slow deliberate way, how his father constantly scolded him because he was not bright, and did not care for politics and newspapers, and how his mother wounded him with her sharp tongue by making merry with him, even in the presence of the servants and strangers. He did not seem to imagine that there was anything wrong in what he said, or that he placed himself in a ludicrous light; nor did he seem to speak from any unmanly craving for sympathy. His manner was so simple and straightforward that what Brita probably would have found strange in another, she found perfectly natural in him.