"Oh, yes," replied the seine-maker. "This is the sort of amusement one can afford to indulge in down here, in the Ashdales." "I have thought," continued Jan, emboldened by the encouragement, "that maybe the story didn't end with the old lady giving Glory Goldie the ten rix-dollars. Perhaps she also invited the girl to come to see her?" "Maybe she did," said the seine-maker. "Maybe she's so rich that she owns a whole stone house?" "That was a happy thought, friend Jan!" "And maybe the rich old lady will pay Glory Goldie's debt?" Jan began, but stopped short, because the old man's daughter-in-law had just come in, and of course he did not care to let her into the secret. "So you're out to-day, Jan," observed the daughter-in-law. "I'm glad you're feeling better." "For that I have to thank my good friend Ol' Bengtsa!" said Jan, with an air of mystery. "He's the one who has cured me." Jan said good-bye, and left at once. For a long while the seine-maker sat gazing out after him. "I don't know what he can have meant by saying that I have cured him," the old man remarked to his daughter-in-law. "It can't be that he's--? No, no!" HEIRLOOMS One evening, toward the close of autumn, Jan was on his way home from Falla, where he had been threshing all day. After his talk with the seine-maker his desire for work had come back to him. He felt now that he must do what he could to keep up so that the little girl on her return would not be subjected to the humiliation of finding her parents reduced to the condition of paupers. When Jan was far enough away from the house not to be seen from the windows he noticed a woman in the road coming toward him. Dusk had already fallen, but he soon saw it was the mistress herself--not the new one, but the old and rightful mistress of Falla. She had on a big shawl that came down to the hem of her skirt. Jan had never seen her so wrapped up, and wondered if she was ill. She had looked poorly of late. In the spring, when her husband died, she had not a gray hair on her head, and now, half a year afterward, she had not a dark hair left. The old mistress stopped and greeted Jan, after which the two stood and talked. She said nothing that would indicate that she had come out expressly to see him, but he felt it to be so. It flashed into his head that she wanted to speak with him about Glory Goldie, and he was rather miffed when she began to talk about something quite different. "I wonder, Jan, if you remember the old owner of Falla, my father, who was master there before Eric came?" "Why shouldn't I remember him, when I was all of twelve at the time of his death?" "He had a good son-in-law," said the old mistress. "He had that," agreed Jan. The old mistress was silent a moment, and sighed once or twice before she continued: "I want to ask your advice about something, Jan. You are not the sort that would go about tittle-tattling what I say." "No, I can hold my tongue." "Yes, I've noticed that this year."