w the boy sitting with his legs crossed under him on
the grass, crying, and she went up to him.

"What are you crying about?"

"Oh, the goat, the goat!"

"Yes; where is the goat?" asked his mother, looking up at the roof.

"It will never come back again," said the boy.

"Dear me! how could that happen?"

He would not confess immediately.

"Has the fox taken it?"

"Ah, if it only were the fox!"

"Are you crazy?" said his mother; "what has become of the goat?"

"Oh-h-h--I happened to--to--to sell it for a cake!"

As soon as he had uttered the word, he understood what it was to sell
the goat for a cake; he had not thought of it before. His mother said,--

"What do you suppose the little goat thinks of you, when you could sell
him for a cake?"

And the boy thought about it, and felt sure that he could never again be
happy. He felt so sorry, that he promised himself never again to do
anything wrong, never to cut the thread on the spinning-wheel, nor let
the goats out, nor go down to the sea alone. He fell asleep where he
lay, and dreamed about the goat.

Suddenly there came something wet close up to his ear, and he started
up. "Bay-ay-ay!" it said; and it was the goat, who had come back again.

"What! have you got back?" He jumped up, took it by the two fore-legs,
and danced with it as if it were a brother; he pulled its beard, and he
was just going in to his mother with it, when he heard some one behind
him, and, looking, saw the girl sitting on the greensward by his side.
Now he understood it all, and let go the goat.

"Is it you, who have come with it?"

She sat, tearing the grass up with her hands, and said,--

"They would not let me keep it; grandfather is sitting up there,
waiting."

While the boy stood looking at her, he heard a sharp voice from the road
above call out, "Now!"

Then she remembered what she was to do; she rose, went over to Oeyvind,
put one of her muddy hands into his, and, turning her face away,
said,--

"I beg your pardon!"

But then her courage was all gone; she threw herself over the goat, and
wept.

"I think you had better keep the goat," said Oeyvind, looking the other
way.

"Come, make haste!" said grandpapa, up on the hill; and Marit rose, and
walked with reluctant feet upward.

"You are forgetting your garter," Oeyvind called after her. She turned
round, and looked first at the garter and then at him. At last she came
to a great resolution, and said, in a chok