ls. Of course he was rebuked
for his misdemeanour; but he only protested against her strict
government, and declared that she could never get over "the
schoolma'am." Yet he acknowledged she was always teaching him something
worth knowing through what she was--the very best woman and the very
best Christian he had ever had the pleasure of knowing.

This was, it must be confessed, an inexcusably obstreperous scholar; but
Tora would not have exchanged her husband, her Gunner, the fast friend
of her promising "brother Karl," for the meekest or the wisest man in
the world.

A WEEK AT KULLEBY.

CHAPTER I.

CHURCH SERVICE.

The church at Kulleby was no dear, old-fashioned Swedish church, with
its low white stone walls and its high black roof. The bell had no
quaintly-formed tower of its own outside and quite separate from the
sacred edifice, like an ecclesiastical functionary whose own soul has
never entered into the Holy of holies. No; the parish of Kulleby had its
pride in a great new wooden sanctuary, with nothing about its exterior,
from foundation to belfry, that might not be seen in any Protestant land
whatever. Crowning the top of a green hill that rose in the midst of a
wide stretch of rolling meadows stood the simple building. To it came on
Sunday the rustics of the parish as regularly as they went to their
week-day work. Only here and there in the unfenced churchyard rose a
low mound to indicate where, as it were, a chance seed had been dropped
into "God's acre."

It was Sunday morning. At eight o'clock the bell had sounded out over
the green slopes, and even late sleepers were called to put on their
best garments, whether church-goers or not church-goers, in honour of
the holy day or holiday, as it might happen to be kept in their home.
Then came the second ringing, when prudent, far-away worshippers took
psalm-book and pocket-handkerchief in hand and started demurely, at a
Sunday pace, for the house of God. At a quarter to ten the clergyman had
been seen in the dim distance, and the fact was announced by
"priest-ringing." At ten came the "assembly-ringing," when talkers in
the churchyard must break off in the midst of a half-made bargain, or
check the but half-expressed sympathy with the joy or sorrow of some
fellow-rustic with whom there had been a confidential chat.

Within, the church was all white, with here and there a gilded line like
a bright, holy purpose running through a simple ev