times.

He had never been so gentle since his father's death as he was that
winter. On Sundays he would read a sermon to his mother, and go to
church with her; but she knew this was only to win her consent to his
going abroad in the spring. Upland Knut, who had always been alone, now
came to live at Kampen. Arne had become very skilful with axe and saw,
and that winter he was often busy at the parsonage as well as Kampen.

One day a messenger came from Boeen to ask him if he would go over there
for some carpentry work. He answered "Yes," without thinking about the
matter. As soon as the man had gone, his mother told him that it was
Baard Boeen who had injured his father; but Arne decided to go all the
same.

It was a fine homestead, and Baard and Arne soon became on friendly
terms. He had many talks, too, with Eli, and at times would sing his own
songs to her, and afterwards feel ashamed.

Then Eli fell ill, and Birgit blamed Baard because Mathilde had gone
away from the parsonage on a visit to town without bidding good-bye to
Eli. It seemed to Baard that whatever he did was wrong.

"You either keep silent too much, or you talk too much," said his wife.

During Eli's illness Baard would often sit and talk with Arne, and one
day he told him how he had been driven to attack Nils, and then how he
had courted and won Birgit.

"She was very melancholy at first," said Baard, "and I had nothing to
say; and then she got into bustling, domineering ways, and I had nothing
to say to that. But one day of real happiness I've not had the twenty
years we've been married."

When Eli was getting better, her mother came down one evening and asked
Arne, in her daughter's name, to go up and sing to her. Eli had heard
him singing. Arne was confused, but gave in and went upstairs.

The room was in darkness, and he had not seen Eli since the day she had
fallen ill, and he had helped to carry her to her room. Arne sat down in
a chair at the foot of the bed. When people talk in the dark they are
generally more truthful than when they see one another's faces.

Eli made Arne sing to her, first a hymn, and then a song of his own. For
some time there was silence between them, and then Eli said, "I wonder,
Arne, that you, who have so much that is beautiful within, should want
to go away. You must not go away."

"There are times when I seem not to want to so much," he answered.

Presently Arne could hear her weeping, and he felt that he