RAGNA A Novel by MADAME ANNA COSTANTINI New York Sturgis & Walton Company 1910 All rights reserved Copyright 1910 By Sturgis & Walton Company Set up and electrotyped. Published April, 1910 RAGNA BOOK I CHAPTER I We see her first, a tall child with wind-blown hair standing on the rocky point of a barren promontory where fjord and ocean meet, wild as the sea-birds that circle about her head--indeed at this time wildness was the keynote of her nature. The household tasks and lessons disposed of, she spent the rest of the day in rambles over the rugged country side, or in exploits that kept the older members of the family in breathless suspense. It was she who mounted bareback the unbroken horses in the pasture, she who sailed her boat down the foaming fjord in the teeth of the storm. Danger heightened her enjoyment, and true descendant of the vikings of old, she looked her best, lithe and straight, breasting the gale, the joy of the struggle gleaming in her sea-blue eyes, flushing her cheeks, her long golden hair flung out on the wind like a triumphal banner. Her home was a long, low, timber house, sheltering amid pines and firs, under the lee of a high rocky hill, a home built for the long northern winters, the long months when the country lay snow-bound. The winter afternoons and evenings were spent in sewing or embroidery, when the father or the mother read aloud, or grandmother told tales of the Old Times, and of the family. The favourite was that of brave young Uncle Olaf, who had sailed to the frozen North in his whaler, never to return. Grandmother always wept at the end of this tale, and father would wipe his spectacles and gaze intently into the fire, but to the children it was a splendid myth, and on clear days they would climb to the bare headland to the north of the house, and stand looking out to sea, watching for Uncle Olaf with his ship, bringing home treasure untold.