Nine years after, Gunlaug came to the town, quite as unexpectedly as she had left it. She had with her a girl of eight years, just like herself formerly, only finer, and as if veiled by a dream. Gunlaug had been married, it was said, and having had something left her, had now come to the town to establish a boarding house for seamen. This she conducted in such a way, that merchants and skippers came to her to hire their men, and sailors to get hired; besides, the whole town ordered fish there. She was called "Fish-Gunlaug," or "Gunlaug on the Bank"; the appellation "Fisher Girl" passed over to the daughter, who was everywhere at the head of the boys in the town. Her history it is that shall here be related; she had something of her mother's natural power, and she got opportunity to use it. CHAPTER II. "SOME OTHER BOYS." The many lovely gardens of the town were fragrant after the rain in their second and third flowering. The sun had gone down behind the everlasting snow-capped mountains, the whole heavens there away were fire and light, and the snow gave a subdued reflection. The nearer mountains stood in shade, but were lightened by the forests in their many coloured tints of autumn. The rocky islands, that in the midst of the fiord followed one after another, just as though rowing to land, gave in their dense forests a yet more marked display of colours, because they lay nearer. The sea was perfectly calm, a large vessel was heaving landward. The people sat upon their wooden doorsteps, half covered with rose bushes on either side; they spoke to each other from porch to porch, or stepped across, or they exchanged greetings with those who were passing towards the long avenue. The tones of a piano might fall from an open window, otherwise there was scarcely a sound to be heard between the conversations; the feeling of stillness was increased by the last ray of sunlight over the sea. All at once there rose up such a tumult from the midst of the town as though it were being stormed. Boys shouted, girls screamed, other boys hurrahed, old women scolded and ordered, the policeman's great dog howled, and all the curs of the town replied; they who were in-doors must go out, out; the noise became so frightful that even the magistrate himself turned on his door-step, and let fall these words: "There must be something up." "Whatever is that?" assailed the ears of those who stood on the doorsteps from others who came from the avenue.--"Yes, what can it be!" they replied.--"Whatever can that be?" they now all of them asked anyone who was passing from the centre of the town. But as this town lies in a crescent shape in an easy curve round the bay, it was long before all at both ends had heard the reply: "It is only the Fisher Girl."