She knew that if she said another word she should burst into tears. With a violent effort, she gathered up her wrapper, which somehow had got unbuttoned at the neck, and, with heedlessly hurrying steps, darted away toward the house. Strand stood looking after her, quite unmindful of his feathered patient, which flew chirping about him in the grass. Two hours later Arnfinn found him sitting under the birches with his hands clasped over the top of his head, and his surgical instruments scattered on the ground around him. “Corpo di Baccho,” exclaimed the student, stooping to pick up the precious tools; “have you been amputating your own head, or is it I who am dreaming?” “Ah,” murmured Strand, lifting a large, strange gaze upon his friend, “is it you?” “Who else should it be? I come to call you to breakfast.” IV. “I wonder what is up between Strand and Augusta?” said Arnfinn to his cousin Inga. The questioner was lying in the grass at her feet, resting his chin on his palms, and gazing with roguishly tender eyes up into her fresh, blooming face; but Inga, who was reading aloud from “David Copperfield,” and was deep in the matrimonial tribulations of that noble hero, only said “hush,” and continued reading. Arnfinn, after a minute’s silence, repeated his remark, whereupon his fair cousin wrenched his cane out of his hand, and held it threateningly over his head. “Will you be a good boy and listen?” she exclaimed, playfully emphasizing each word with a light rap on his curly pate. “Ouch! that hurts,” cried Arnfinn, and dodged. “It was meant to hurt,” replied Inga, with mock severity, and returned to “Copperfield.” Presently the seed of a corn-flower struck the tip of her nose, and again the cane was lifted; but Dora’s housekeeping experiences were too absorbingly interesting, and the blue eyes could not resist their fascination. “Cousin Inga,” said Arnfinn, and this time with as near an approach to earnestness as he was capable of at that moment, “I do believe that Strand is in love with Augusta.” Inga dropped the book, and sent him what was meant to be a glance of severe rebuke, and then said, in her own amusingly emphatic way: “I do wish you wouldn’t joke with such things, Arnfinn.” “Joke! Indeed I am not joking. I wish to heaven that I were. What a pity it is that she has taken such a dislike to him!” “Dislike! Oh, you are a profound philosopher, you are! You think that because she avoids--” Here Inga abruptly clapped her hand over her mouth, and, with sudden change of voice and expression, said: “I am as silent as the grave.” “Yes, you are wonderfully discreet,” cried Arnfinn, laughing, while the girl bit her under lip with an air of penitence and mortification which, in any other bosom than a cousin’s would have aroused compassion.