true!"

"No, it is not true; but it is, as I said, probable," replied her
father. "But there is one thing I should like to tell him myself, if
you dislike what I have said, and that is, if he should entertain
anything of the sort, that you have no wish in that direction. I do
not think it right to let him nurse the probability in his mind that
you might listen to him when he comes with his mother next year, when
it would be painful to her to see her only son get a Kurv" (literally,
a basket; the meaning is a rejection). "I think we should save them
this, as it would be a heavy blow to both son and mother."

"But Kirstin has told him I cannot marry, little father," said Helga,
"and he believes it."

"Herr Hardy will not care what an old woman says," replied her father;
"but there is no need to say anything whatever, and nothing must be
said unless you feel you could never listen to him."

"I do not know what to say, little father," said Helga, with a bright
gleam of coming happiness in her eyes.

"Then we will say nothing, and let things take their course," said
Pastor Lindal. "It is best so. You do not know your own mind yet, and
it is possible it is the same with Hardy; only do not build too much
on this, Helga. And now kiss your little father, and I will go and
thank Hardy for his goodness about Karl."

John Hardy was writing a letter to his mother.

"We shall be home in ten days from the date of this letter, dearest
mother, and this letter will be three days reaching you. The route we
shall take is by the cattle steamer from Esbjerg to Harwich, from
which latter place I will telegraph. I shall bring the two Danish
horses I have bought for your own use, and as Garth has had them in
training some time they will be ready for you to use at once.

"I shall bring a son of Pastor Lindal's with me; his age is, as I have
told you in a former letter, about sixteen. His father has been good
to me, and would receive no payment for my stay with him; but I have
left the money to be distributed in his parish as he should direct. My
view is to let Karl Lindal stay at Hardy Place this autumn and winter,
but in the spring to get him a situation with a foreign broker in
London. His knowledge of English is only from what I have taught him,
and it is necessary that he should learn more to fit him for an office
in England. He is also a raw country lad, and a stay at Hardy Place
will work a change, and prepare him for a wider sp