d
not yet paid up the price of his business in town, and in taking over
the property he incurred a still larger debt. For both he had been made
to pay well. Travel he must, but he had to content himself with going
off for a month each year--one year to England, another to France, and
so on. His greatest desire was a visit to America, but on this he dared
not venture yet. He contented himself with reading of the new
wonderland. Reading was his chief pleasure; next to it came gardening,
in which he possessed more skill than most trained gardeners.

This quiet man with the bright eyes was shyer than a girl of fourteen.
Every week-day morning he chose, if possible, a seat by himself on the
little steamer which took him to town as long as the bay was not frozen
over. In going on shore he showed extreme consideration for others; then
he hurried off, bowing respectfully to his acquaintances, to his house
on the market-place, where he was to be found until evening, when he
returned as he had come. At times he cycled. In winter he drove; and at
this season he sometimes stayed over night in town, where he occupied
two modest attic rooms in his own house.

The town knew of no other man possessing in such a degree all the
qualities of a perfect husband. But his invincible modesty made all
overtures impossible until ... the right woman came. But then he was
already over forty. The same fate befell him as had befallen his uncle
and namesake at Lake Michigan; a young girl of his own family came and
took possession of him. And she was this very uncle's only child.

He was working one Sunday morning, in his shirt-sleeves, in the kitchen
and flower garden on the northern side of the house, when a young girl,
wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat, laid her ungloved hands on the white
fence and looked in between its round tops.

Anders, bending over a flower-bed, heard a playful: "Good morning!" and
started up. Speechless and motionless he stood, with earth-soiled hands,
his eyes drinking her in like a revelation.

She laughed and said: "Who am I?" Then his thinking power returned. "You
are--you must be----"; he got no further, but smiled a welcome.

"Who am I?"

"Marit Krog from Michigan."

He had heard from his sister, who lived on the farther side of the left
ridge, that Marit Krog was on her way to Norway. But he had no idea that
she had arrived.

"And you are my father's nephew," said she with an English accent. "How
like him y