iful dress of purple velvet. "I envy the women of
Iceland their fair clothes."

"There is no need of that," Thorfinn said, "for this dress is yours and
anything else from my chests that you like. Here is a necklace that I
beg you to take. It did not have a fairer mistress in Greece where I got
it."

"You are a very generous trader," Gudrid said.

Then Thorfinn gave Eric a great sword with a gold-studded scabbard.
After a while he took them to Biarni's ship. He also gave them gifts.
They all talked and laughed much while they were together.

"You are merry comrades," Eric said. "I ask you both and all your men to
spend the winter at my house. You can put your goods into my
storehouses."

"By my sword! a generous offer," said Thorfinn. "As for me, I am happy
to come."

Biarni and all the rest said the same thing. Thorfinn walked to the
house with Eric and Gudrid, while the other men sailed to the ship-sheds
and pulled their boats under them.

Then Thorfinn saw to the unloading and storing of his goods.

"Is this Gudrid your daughter?" he asked of Eric one day.

"She is the widow of my son Thorstein," Eric said. "He died the same
winter that they were married. Her father, too, died not long ago. So
Gudrid lives with me."

Now all that winter until Yule-time Eric spread a good feast every
night. There was laughter through his house all the time. Often at the
feasts the men cast lots to see whether they might sit on the
cross-bench with the women. Sometimes it was Thorfinn's luck to sit by
Gudrid. Then they talked gaily and drank together.

At last Yule was coming near. Eric went about the house gloomy then. One
day Thorfinn put his hand on Eric's shoulder and said:

"Something is troubling you, Eric. We have all noticed that you are not
gay as you used to be. Tell me what is the matter."

"You have carried yourselves like noble men in my house," Eric answered.
"I am proud to have you for guests. Now I am ashamed that you should not
find a house worthy of you. I am ashamed that when you leave me you will
have to say that you never spent a worse Yule than you did with Eric the
Red in Greenland. For my cupboards are empty."

"Oh, that is easily mended," Thorfinn said. "No house could feed eighty
men so long and not feel it. I never knew so generous a host before.
But I have flour and grain and mead in my boat. You are welcome to all
of it. You have only to open the doors of your own storehouses. It is a
littl