Fru Rendalen asked if Nora might not move over to "The Estate," and during her absence overlook the house and school, and take charge of the money and books. Afterwards she might help with them, and perhaps perfect herself in school subjects. Both parents gave their unqualified consent to this at once, they had precisely the same opinion of their daughter as Fru Rendalen. Her father added, smiling, that she seemed to have no notion of falling in love. "No," her mother observed gladly; "she has no inclination for marriage." At the house and in the school, all thought it strange that the youngest teacher, a pupil a year ago, should be put over them; but it was certainly true that Nora displayed her best qualities--she was clear-headed, ready, and marvellously helpful. She got on well with Rendalen, he seemed to find pleasure in conversing with her. "Conversing with" is not the right expression--_he_ talked and she listened, but then he never did otherwise; he always went away when others joined in. Although he was not quite thirty, he had by degrees acquired a number of curious ways, but each one was the result of something in the development of his character. Had not his fashion of running away from any discussion had its origin in a series of sorrowful experiences? He was making a noble struggle with the bursts of passion which certain things, certain names, always aroused. The result was that whenever he restrained himself, he choked as though he had swallowed something the wrong way; and if it was very violent, he spat quickly two or three times through his closed lips--not actual spitting, at the most a sort of fine spray. Tinka mimicked him incomparably. She made a face over little things as though she had taken too much mustard, for greater ones as though she had swallowed soft soap; she would turn her head and give a cough like a cat, or if she pretended to spit, it was with an air of disdainful superiority. Very soon all the pupils followed her example--there was nothing they did better. At the school, Tomas Rendalen was just what he had been when he first came home--all brightness and life, wonderfully careful in making all his explanations clear, and often quite fascinating in his manner. It must be confessed that he proved a rod in pickle for the teachers, but there was no longer any misunderstanding him, though they were often on pins and needles when he began to interfere; but it was only necessary to speak to him about it, and he became at once irresistibly charming; this, however, did not prevent a recurrence. His uneven treatment of the children, his way of treating any subject according to the temper of the moment, remained unfortunately the same, but it was done unconsciously; and this fact, the absolute justice of his mind, and more than all the frankness with which he begged pardon when he had once been convinced that he was to blame, set things for the most part right again.