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h she pretended to despise her. "You are one of those women whom men go mad about--one of the meek, still women who madden men," she said. "But I am one whom men madden rather; for I hate them and detest their ways, and yet cannot get on without them." Gudrid denied her maddening qualities, and denied that she was meek or still. She assured Freydis that she herself could get on very well without marriage. "I used not to think about it at all until I came to this country where, it seems to me, nobody thinks of anything else. The first thing that happened to me was dreadful. It is no wonder if I think about it now." Freydis wished to hear what dreadful thing it was, and with a little pressing Gudrid told her what Thorberg had prophesied. Freydis stared. "Is that all? You have only to live in Greenland and live to be a hundred and you might have as many husbands. People die here in the winter like tadpoles in a dry summer. Three! Her moderation alarms me." "But I must be sure of the death of two men!" said poor Gudrid. "You must be sure of the death of every man in the world," said Freydis. "It may be that you will be glad enough to be sure of it before you have done with them. I am sure that I should be." That was all the comfort she got out of Freydis; but happily she had a diversion of her thoughts. Biorn Heriolfsson, who had come round the Ness soon after Thorbeorn sailed, now came up to see Eric Red. He was a brisk, vivacious man, with a good conceit of himself, and had much that was interesting to say of the new countries he had visited. Gudrid was rapt in attention, for every word he said seemed to make Einar visible to her, with his bright eyes, his ear-rings, his soft eager voice and his white teeth. Einar now stood for all sorts of things besides himself to Gudrid. He stood for home; he stood for Halldis and Orme who had loved her well; and he stood for the days when no heavy fate hung between her and the blue sky. He stood to her as to us the song of a lark may stand, when we are shut up within the walls of a town. She would have married him gladly, but for the Fate; but she no longer thought of him as a lover. Therefore on account of all that he stood for--home, freedom, loving-kindness, hopefulness--she was enthralled by Biorn's talk, and could not hear enough of the new countries which he had seen. Einar's account of what he had done and where been was quite true. A fair wind
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