The next day she tried to help her mother in the house, not without some hard words and sarcasms about such fine elegant ladies only being in the way. Still she set her will to the task of being a help to her mother, especially in mending the clothes. She gave what she could from her little annuity, so that they were on fairly friendly terms; but it seemed to Tora that she had a right to have some time to herself. A little while before supper, she would take the ferry across to the other side and go up either into the wood above "The Estate" or into the "Groves." There was no peace at home. Whether she went to the wood or "The Estate," she always landed at Bommen, and went up that way, though it was not exactly the most direct one; but she did not know a prettier place in the town than the house in the large garden there, so she gave herself the pleasure of looking at it every day. Both house and garden had belonged to the Wingaard family, but they had exchanged them for the Fürsts' house in the market-place, where the Wingaards carried on the Fürst business. The brother-in-law, Niels Fürst, therefore now owned the house in the large garden at Bommen. Tora passed it with a little apprehension, although the man she dreaded was certainly not there, but on board his ship. This became a change and occupation, and formed, as it were, an incident in her walk. Every time it was over, she went more carelessly up to the wood, or out to the "Groves." In a little Norwegian town like this, all the girls go about as they like. She met others and joined them, or went on by herself; generally she wished to be alone for an hour or two; she went, as a rule, to some particular spot, and when there took out her book, if she had one, or else she wove day-dreams without the aid of books. Or else, and this was now almost always the case, she wrote long letters, one every day, about any curious experience. She had her portfolio with her and an ink-bottle in her pocket; she lay on the grass with the portfolio on a stone, or she sat on a stone with the portfolio spread out on her lap and the ink-bottle by her side. That did splendidly: true open-air letters, where the words seemed to fly before the wind, and every varying thought found ready utterance. And how delightful it was in the thicket, just dappled by the sunbeams, enlivened by the twittering of the birds, a little startled by the rustle of a squirrel in the boughs! The distant sounds from the harbour, from the works by the river-bank, the voices in the "Groves" and on the road, with every now and then a strain of music, only made the silence of the place where she was sitting the deeper. This was her one bit of summer poetry. As soon as she opened her eyes in the morning, she began to long for it; the noise and quarrelling in the house passed by her as though they did not concern her--it was here that she lived. Her great expedition to Fru Gröndal, and her remarkable