t again.

"We looked upon him differently at that time. But I don't want to go
into all that again now. I will only admit that it was horrible. So you
may think what you like about it--I mean as to how it came about."

The daughter took her arm away and looked at her mother.

"Yes, Magne, we don't always do as we mean to do, and I have told you I
was at the perilous age. And so you can understand how I felt when I
saw your father--there was something more than pettiness and frivolity
in me after all."

"But the others, mother! How could you put it in the proper light to
the others, to the Court, to our relations, to my uncle, and all his
people? Surely there must have been a fuss and a scandal that you had
to hold up your head against?"

"Wait, Magne, we will let all that alone till later. There were no
'others' at all! Some fishermen had seen us, and they had taken
measures to find out who I was. Before it was known I had gone away,
and within one month I was his wife. I had fallen into the hands of a
man who did things thoroughly and at once. He was too simple to
conceive any other way than to go straight forward. So it took place
without any obstacles."

"And what did people say? Was it a good thing for my father--I mean in
people's opinion--that he had married you?"

"You mean that he should marry a maid of honour?" she smiled. "Do you
know what people said of it? Why, Karl Mander had publicly maligned the
Queen--one of her maids of honour had heard him, and a month after she
had eloped with him. That was about it. She had chosen the roughest man
in the country. That was what people said."

"Naturally."

"A year after a tourist wrote in a newspaper that he had seen the
runaway maid of honour standing at the washing-tub. Ha, ha! It was true
enough for that matter. You had come, then, and it was harvest-time,
and I was obliged to lend a hand. We both did."

"Mother, mother, what was he like at home? When you were together, I
mean? Wasn't it perfect? It must have been the greatest and best thing
the world had to give? Mother, mother, all my life I must be grateful
to you for having treasured this up for me till now, for before I
should not have understood it."

"Yes, isn't it so? Such things cannot be told to a child, nor to a
half-grown girl. But I am not telling you, now, only for the sake of
telling you. You ask how things were when we were together. Picture him
to yourself first. An unselfish, devoted