The task he had assumed was severe. They were quite off the usual track; night was approaching, and the cold becoming intense. He toiled on in a sturdy kind of patience, almost instinctively taking the right direction, until at length he had the joy of finding himself on the track whence the terror-stricken horse had diverged. Very shortly, the other sledges came in sight, and the party made the best of its way back to Grisselhamn. The injured traveler was made as comfortable as was possible under the circumstances, and Olaf was sent to Upsala to bring thence his wife, with her maid. The poor fellow had himself sustained a severe injury when thrown from the sledge, and was also exhausted by his toilsome homeward route. But he set forth at once on the journey to Upsala without a word, and under his escort, those he sought returned with him to Grisselhamn. Fortunately, he was not as entirely ignorant of the Italian language as were his new charge of the Dalecarnian speech. He had wandered repeatedly so far as the northern part of Italy in order to dispose of various little articles of his own handiwork, as well as those of his neighbors. His share of the profits of these adventures had enabled him to purchase the horse he had just lost, and by whose means he supported himself. This, therefore, seemed an inauspicious moment for falling in love, and of proposing to himself to take a wife. But love being a sentiment not particularly subject to order and rule, poor Olaf had to yield to his fate. This fate was black-eyed, and brown, and its name was Viola, and she who possessed these attractions was the little maid whose duty it now was to take charge of her master, with such aid as Olaf could render. Nursing was new business to the hardy young peasant, but he was glad of occupation, and thankful for a task that kept him near Viola. She, on her part, felt supreme contempt for black eyes, from the moment she met the first kind glance from Olaf's blue ones; if he proved an awkward nurse, why, there was all the more for her to teach him. Besides, it was not long before she discovered the severe contusion he had received in his fall, and felt it absolutely necessary to take his aching shoulder under her charge, and to treat it with a vast deal of needed and a vast deal of needless compassion and care. Though his nature was honest as the day, Olaf for once was willing to make the very most of his bruises, since Viola was thus led to pour out upon him such floods of pity as would soon lead to love. When, therefore, the fractured ankle was healed, and the Italian party ready to return home, and Olaf was pressed to ask what favor he would wish in return for his services, it is not so strange, considering what human nature is, that all he asked was permission to make a Swede of the little brown maiden who, in his eyes, was the only maiden on earth.