rne; but now the boy stood proudly in a
suit of soldier gray, and the girl made a pretty picture in a set of soft
new furs.

It was the morning of the twins' twelfth birthday, and a March snow-storm
was covering the housetops and pavements with a white fur coat, "Just
like my own pretty coat," Gerda said, turning slowly round and round so
that everyone might see the warm white covering.

"The snow will soon be gone," she added, "but my furs will wait for me
until next winter."

"You may wear them to school to-day in honor of your birthday," said her
mother; "but Birger's soldier suit seems a little out of season."

Birger had taken a fancy to have a suit of gray with black trimmings,
such as the Swedish soldiers wear, and it had been given to him with
a new Swedish flag, as a match for Gerda's furs.

Lieutenant Ekman turned his son around in order to see the fit of the
trim jacket. "When you get the gun to go with it," he told the lad, "you
will be a second Gustavus Adolphus."

"If I am to be as great a man as Gustavus Adolphus, I shall have to go to
war," replied Birger; "and there seems to be little chance for a war
now."

"There are many peaceful ways by which a man may serve his country,"
Lieutenant Ekman told his son; "but King Gustavus II had to fight to keep
Sweden from being swallowed up by the other nations."

"I could never understand how Sweden happened to have such a great
fighter as Gustavus Adolphus," said Karen; but Gerda shook a finger at
her.

"Sh!" she said, "that isn't the way to talk about your own country. And
have you forgotten Gustav Vasa? He was the first of the Vasa line of
kings; and he and Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII made the name of Vasa
one of the most illustrious in Swedish history."

"Karen will never forget Gustav Vasa," said Birger, "after she has been
to Dalarne and seen all the places where he was in hiding before he
was a king."

"Yes," said Gerda, "there's the barn where he worked at threshing grain,
and the house where the woman lowered him out of the window in the night,
and the Stone of Mora, on the bank of the river, where he spoke to the
men of Dalarne and urged them to fight for freedom."

"And there's the stone house in Mora over the cellar where Margit Larsson
hid him when the Danish soldiers were close on his track," added Birger.
"The inscription says:--

"'Gustav Eriksson Vasa, while in exile and wandering in Dalarne with a
view of stirring up the pe