The womenfolk had not retired. As Jan passed by the open window he saw Glory Goldie sitting with her arms stretched out across the table, her head resting on them. It looked as if she were still crying. Katrina was standing back in the room wrapping her big shawl around Glory Goldie's bundle of clothing. "You needn't bother with that, mother," said Glory Goldie without raising her head. "Can't you see that father is mad at me because I'm leaving?" "Then he'll have to get glad again," returned Katrina, calmly. "You say that because you don't care for him," said the girl, through her sobs. "All you think about is the hut. But father and I, we think of each other, and I'll not leave him!" "But what about the hut?" asked Katrina. "It can go as it will with the hut, if only father will care for me again." Jan moved quietly away from the door, where he had been standing a moment, listening, and sat down on the step. He never thought for an instant that Glory Goldie would remain at home. Indeed he knew better than did any one else that she must go away. All the same it was to him as if the soft little bundle had again been laid in his arms. His heart had been set going once more. Now it was beating away in his breast as if trying to make up for lost time. With that he felt that his armour of defence was gone. Then came grief and longing. He saw them as dark shadows in among the trees. He opened his arms to them, a smile of happiness lighting his face. "Welcome! Welcome!" he cried. AT THE PIER When the steamer _Anders Fryxell_ pulled out from the pier at Borg Point with Glory Goldie of Ruffluck on board, Jan and Katrina stood gazing after it until they could no longer see the faintest outline of either the girl or the boat. Every one else had left the pier, the watchman had hauled down the flag and locked the freight shed, but they still tarried. It was only natural that the parents should stand there as long as they could see anything of the boat, but why they did not go their ways afterward they hardly knew themselves. Perhaps they dreaded the thought of going home again, of stepping into the lonely hut in each other's company. "I've got no one but him to cook for now!" mused Katrina, "no one but him to wait for! But what do I care for him? He could just as well have gone, too. It was the girl who understood him and all his silly talk, not I. I'd be better off alone." "It would be easier to go home with my grief if I didn't have that sour-faced old Katrina sitting round the house," thought Jan. "The girl knew so well how to get on with her, and could make her happy and content; but now I suppose I'll never get another civil word from that quarter."