"Now, Sigurd," she called sweetly, "I am ready! Where shall we go?"

Sigurd hastened to her side, happy and smiling.

"Across there," he said, pointing toward the direction of Bosekop. "There is a stream under the trees that laughs to itself all day--you know it, mistress? And the poppies are in the field as you go--and by the banks there are the heart's-ease flowers--we cannot have too many of them! Shall we go?"

"Wherever you like, dear," answered Thelma tenderly, looking down from her stately height on the poor stunted creature at her side, who held her dress as though he were a child clinging to her as his sole means of guidance. "All the land is pleasant to-day."

They left the farm and its boundaries. A few men were at work on one of Güldmar's fields, and these looked up,--half in awe, half in fear,--as Thelma and her fantastic servitor passed along.

"'Tis a fine wench!" said one man, resting on his spade, and following with his eyes the erect, graceful figure of his employer's daughter.

"Maybe, maybe!" said another gruffly; "but a fine wench is a snare of the devil! Do ye mind what Lovisa Elsland told us?"

"Ay, ay," answered the first speaker, "Lovisa knows,--Lovisa is the wisest woman we have in these parts--that's true! The girl's a witch, for sure!"

And they resumed their work in gloomy silence. Not one of them would have willingly labored on Olaf Güldmar's land, had not the wages he offered been above the usual rate of hire,--and times were bad in Norway. But otherwise, the superstitious fear of him was so great that his fields might have gone untilled and his crops ungathered,--however, as matters stood, none of them could deny that he was a good paymaster, and just in his dealings with those whom he employed.

Thelma and Sigurd took their way in silence across a perfumed stretch of meadow-land,--the one naturally fertile spot in that somewhat barren district. Plenty of flowers blossomed at their feet, but they did not pause to gather these, for Sigurd was anxious to get to the stream where the purple pansies grew. They soon reached it--it was a silvery clear ribbon of water that unrolled itself in bright folds, through green, transparent tunnels of fern and waving grass--leaping now and then with a swift dash over a smooth block of stone or jagged rock--but for the most part gliding softly, with a happy, self-satisfied murmur, as though it were some drowsy spirit dreaming joyous dreams. Here nodded the grave, purple-leaved pansies,--legendary consolers of the heart,--their little, quaint, expressive physiognomies turned in every direction; up to the sky, as though absorbing the sunlight,--down to the ground, with an almost severe air of meditation, or curled sideways on their stems in a sort of sly reflectiveness.




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