r. Nearly all of the windows had been
reglazed, the gate was hung, and the accumulated drift of two years in
the yard cleared away.

With lighter spirits, and a firm determination in her heart, she
walked swiftly back to her child. When she entered the door she heard
his merry laugh in Suneva's parlor. He was standing on her knee,
singing after her some lines of a fisherman's "Casting Song," swaying
backwards and forwards, first on one foot and then on the other, to
the melody. Suneva was so interested in the boy, that, for a moment,
she did not notice the pale, angry woman approaching her. When she
did, her first thought was conciliation. "I heard him crying,
Margaret; and as I knew thou wert out, I went for him. He is a merry
little fellow, he hath kept me laughing."

"Come here, Jan!" In her anger, she grasped the child's arm roughly,
and he cried out, and clung to Suneva.

Then Margaret's temper mastered her as it had never done before in her
life. She struck the child over and over again, and, amid its cries of
pain and fright, she said some words to Suneva full of bitterness and
contempt.

"Thee love thy child!" cried Suneva in a passion, "not thou, indeed!
Thou loves no earthly thing but thyself. Every day the poor baby
suffers for thy bad temper--even as his father did."

"Speak thou not of his father--thou, who first tempted him away from
his home and his wife."

"When thou says such a thing as that, then thou lies; I tempted him
not. I was sorry for him, as was every man and woman in Lerwick. Poor
Jan Vedder!"

"I told thee not to speak of my husband."

"Thy husband!" cried Suneva scornfully. "Where is he? Thou may well
turn pale. Good for thee is it that the Troll Rock hasn't a tongue!
Thou cruel woman! I wonder at myself that I have borne with thee so
long. Thou ought to be made to tell what thou did with Jan Vedder!"

"What art thou saying? What dost thou mean? I will not listen to
thee"--and she lifted the weeping child in her arms, and turned to
go.

"But at last thou shalt listen. I have spared thee long enough. Where
is Jan Vedder? Thou knows and thou only; and that is what every one
says of thee. Is he at the bottom of the Troll Rock? And who pushed
him over? Answer that, Margaret Vedder!"

Suneva, in her passion, almost shrieked out these inquiries. Her anger
was so violent, that it silenced her opponent. But no words could have
interpreted the horror and anguish in Margaret's face, whe