Margaret walked about outside the little brown house, while her companion freed the roof from its weight of ice. Her own home was in sight across the river, and at the left was a lovely strip of hill country that rose and fell until it merged with the horizon. She was so absorbed in the view that she did not realize when the shovelling was finished, until Waldsen stood close beside her. “Has your father told you that I buy this place, and that to-morrow the papers will be signed? Yes, I have bought it for my home; I shall plant the ground and work it, as your father says, to win my living. At evening we shall sit here and look up the river and down to where the sun sets, and then over to your house, thanking you for your kindness to a lonely stranger.” The “we” dropped in unawares, but Margaret knew that he meant Andrea, his sister. “Next Christmas I shall move here, for my best resolves have come on Christmas Day; meanwhile, there is much to be done, and I shall ask your woman’s art how best to make my home attractive.” Then they talked of the garden and of the house, how it would need a summer kitchen, until he, through the subtilty of woman’s sympathy, thought that he could not wait all the long months for Andrea’s coming. That night Waldsen sat a long time pondering over a letter that had that day come from Andrea. At the first, nothing new suggested itself, except that she perhaps was lonely, but on a second reading a note of pain was evident. Carelessly feeling in the pocket of his overcoat before going to bed, he found that he had received two letters, when he thought he had but one, and, re-lighting his lamp, he read the second, which was blotted and tear-stained. It ran thus:— “The stamp on the last letter that I wrote you, dear Gurth, is hardly dried, yet I must write again and tell you that which for the last month I have tried to conceal. Now it is useless. My father will bring a new wife to fill my mother’s place in two months from now. A hateful woman who has in some strange way gained power over and fascinated him, but who does not wish me in the house, for my father is urging, nay, almost commanding, my betrothal to Hans Kraus, the brewer’s son, whom I have seen hardly twice, and whose mother is arranging the matter for him.