The time was almost up; conversation died away in the suspense that by degrees pervaded all, and did them good. A flourish of drums, trumpets and horns, suddenly opened the overture; Oehlenschläger's "Axel and Valborg" was to be played, and Petra had herself chosen this. She was sitting behind the scenes and listening. Before the curtain, the small number of her countrymen that the house could muster, were trembling on her account, as one always does when expecting anything personally dear of one's own to be brought forward. It was as if each were about to appear on the stage himself; at such moments many prayers arise, even from hearts that otherwise seldom pray. The overture grew softer, peace fell over the harmonies, they melted gradually away as in sunlight. It was over,--anxious silence ensued. The curtain rose. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 1: Norwegian idiom, to get a long nose--to be disappointed.--Tr.] [Footnote 2: The farms are often built on a steep mountain side.--Tr.] * * * * * BURNETT AND HOOD, MIDDLESBROUGH. OVIND: A STORY OF COUNTRY LIFE IN NORWAY, BY BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON, TRANSLATED BY S. AND E. HJERLEID. _Elegantly bound, Crown 8vo_. LONDON: SIMPKIN MARSHALL AND CO. MIDDLESBROUGH: BURNETT AND HOOD. * * * NOTICES OF THE PRESS. "We drop from fairy land to one almost as attractive in _Ovind_.... There is about it a delightful freshness."--_Athenæum_, Nov. 20, 1869. "_Ovind_ is thoroughly simple and genuine, a word-painting wonderfully like those Scandinavian pictures which most of us saw for the first time in the Exhibition of 1862.... Its subdued harmonious tones have a singular charm about them, and leave a very distinct impression."--_The Spectator_, Dec. 25, 1869. "The tale is told in simple language with many quaint touches of humour."--_Daily Telegraph_, Dec, 24, 1869. "The story relates simply, but very beautifully, the young loves of a peasant boy and a landowners grand-daughter, and introduces in the course of the narrative very many Norwegian customs."--_Public Opinion_, Dec. 11, 1869. "The great merits of Björnson's literary style are his intense originality and unfaltering simplicity. All his writings are thoroughly true to nature, while the sombre scenery of his native land inspires him with a diction which we meet with in no other books, and is entirely his own."--_The Examiner and London Review_, Jan. 1, 1870. "One of the most winning little stories we have ever read."--_The Literary Churchman_, Nov. 29, 1869.