hts of her grandmother, he tried to soothe her. She shook her head
mournfully at his kind words, and told him that she had just done a
cruel thing, that Klaus had asked her to be his wife, and she had said
no to him. This came upon Lars very much like a thunder-bolt, for he had
no idea that Klaus had any such wish; and much as he pitied his friend,
he was not entirely sorry that Ilda had said no. So he asked her why she
had refused to be Klaus's wife, when, with much embarrassment, she told
him that she cared more for some one else.

Lars did not urge her to say any more, but leaving his currants, he
followed Klaus down the mountain.

A few days after this, to the surprise of every one, Klaus bade his
friends good-by, and took passage on the little steamer to
Christiansand, from whence he would cross the Skagerrack, and sailing
down the coast of Denmark, past Holland and Belgium, through the English
Channel, he would be on the broad Atlantic, which was to bear him to a
new home in the far western land.

Lars was not merely surprised, he was stunned, and thought his friend
almost an enemy to go in that manner without consulting him, without
even asking his advice or company. They had never before been separated.
He could not understand it; and when Klaus bade him good-by he looked
into his face as if to seek the reason for this strange conduct, but
Klaus gave him no chance to ask it. He simply grasped his hand in
silence, giving it a close clasp, and then he was off.

Days, weeks, months, went by, and no one heard from Klaus; at last his
mother had a letter from him. He wrote cheerfully; said he liked
America, but that he could not make up his mind to go far away to the
prairies, where he could never see the blue ocean or the white gulls, or
hear the splash of oars.

Meanwhile Lars was very unhappy. Everything seemed to go wrong with
him--the crops failed, his share in the fisheries was small, and his
father was hard and close with him. He missed his friend sadly; he cared
no longer to do the daring things they had attempted together. He had
never been to see Ilda since the day she had told him that she did not
love his friend Klaus. As the spring advanced into summer, he met her
one day in the pine woods near her cottage, and she looked so pleased to
see him that he was tempted to tell her of all his troubles, especially
of how disappointed and hurt he was by the departure of Klaus; and this
reminded him of what sh