And if Tomas Rendalen had lectured to an ungrateful audience, here was one which was responsive enough; young girls love courage; when they have not to be in the front themselves they glow with admiration. The tall, fair, slender one with the large eyes, is the sheriff's daughter--look at her; she has her mother's birdlike face, but instead of its expression, hers was held high as if for a bold flight. It was framed by a mass of disordered fair hair which now, when her eyes, her whole face glowed, seemed to glow with them. She did not remember the different heads of the lecture in their exact order, the most important, the most interesting, came first; from their school-life and association with Tomas, Fru Rendalen and the teachers, they were all better qualified to seize his meaning than the audience in general had been. But as Nora was in full flow she stopped, grew crimson, then white: Fru Rendalen stood there on the steps! Andreas Berg had kept his word, and they had forgotten him. When Andreas had come to her, Fru Rendalen had been so upset, that it was an absolute delight to her to find anything upon which to vent her displeasure; she marched out down the great steps; she wished to catch the girls in the very act, and therefore went the whole way round the wing and along the gymnasium, so as to come in behind them. But just at the ante-room door, which the others had of course forgotten to shut, she heard Nora, helped out by her friend, delivering the lecture--Tomas's lecture--with Tomas's tone of voice, his delivery, his fire, with really noble eloquence. Yes, there was one who had listened! The stately Fru Rendalen would in pure self-forgetfulness have held back just for the sake of hearing and being with them, but it was not construed in that way; Nora's terror, the cry of the others, as they turned and saw this all-powerful lady, was worth remembering. Fru Rendalen was schoolmistress enough to look for this token of respect; she raised her voice and said, "I ought to be excessively angry, and that to some purpose! I see you _understand_ this! But anything so marvellous as Nora's memory I have never heard." "Never heard anything so marvellous"--it was well that it was not school time. But when Nora heard that it was not to cost her her life, and saw that Fru Rendalen was really pleased, she flung herself upon her neck with all the impetuosity of sixteen and burst into tears. It pleased Fru Rendalen. "You are a wild, sweet girl," she said. "Listen, child; when you have finished here, come over to me and we will have some regular fun." IV THE STAFF This, thinks the intelligent reader, will be an account of a school, and I quite agree that so it ought to be. But life's logic is not always ours, and we are going to keep to that of life. CHAPTER I