be with the family at that house. Gunner is a splendid fellow,
as you know, and his father draws all kinds of nice people about him, I
hear. I did not dare to tell you this before, little sister; but now I
have made a clean breast of it. I was half teasing about it, too. Be
sure, I'll work hard and live low before I shall let anybody help me.
Well, good-bye," and he stretched out his hand to Tora, who took it
hastily for a hearty shake, and then they parted.

Karl was wearing his white university cap, which, with the loading of
the wagon, marked him as a student on the way to Upsala, and would
ensure him many a friendly greeting by the way. Tora had prudently
covered the fresh velvet with a fair cotton cover; but the
blue-and-yellow rosette was in full sight--a token of the honours he had
lately won at his examination, and would be striving to win at the old
centre of learning. The kind neighbours whom he had known from boyhood
had added to his equipment--here a cheese, and there a pat of butter or
a bag of fresh biscuits; but he did not need to open his stores by the
way. Now and again from the roadside houses kindly faces smiled on him,
and homely fare was offered him by the elders; while flowers or wild
berries came to his share from glad children who had been ranging the
woods for treasures during these last days of their summer vacation.

As for Tora, sitting in a low chair in the midst of her possessions, she
went rattling over the cobble-stones, if not more proud at least more
happy of heart than a conqueror of old at the head of a Roman triumph.
She had reached the goal towards which she had long been striving. She
was now an independent worker, with a profession by which she could earn
an honourable living. She was a teacher, "a teacher of the little
school"--that is to say, of the school for little children. The state
was her sure paymaster. If continued health were granted her, her path
for the future was plain--her bread was sure.

The cobble-stones were soon passed, and over the smooth country road
rumbled the clumsy vehicle, now through evergreen thickets, now through
groves of bright birches, and at last out on the rolling meadows. The
fences had disappeared, and but for a lone landmark here and there, the
sea of green might have seemed the property of any strong-handed
labourer who might choose to call it his own.

Down an unusually steep slope the wagon passed, then across the low
meadow with a brigh