was justly unpopular.
His manly bearing, however, and the friendship of several of the
professors saved him from the _consilium abeundi cum infamia_, with
which he was threatened. Instead of that he was appointed _docent_ in
aesthetics, Secretary to the Faculty of Philosophy, and Assistant
University Librarian. His summer vacations he spent at Raemen with the
Myhrmans. His playmate, Miss Anna, was now sixteen years of age, and had
undergone that miraculous transformation, which never loses its
delightful mystery, from childhood into young womanhood. He went away
one day and bade good-by to an awkward kangaroo-like girl in short
skirts, and returned in a few months to greet a lovely, blushingly
dignified young lady, who probably avowed no more her fondness for him
with the same frank heedlessness as of old. But she would have been more
than woman if she could have resisted the wooing of the beautiful youth
upon whom nature had showered so many rare gifts. A stone has been found
up in the woods above Raemen which yet shows under its coating of moss
the initials of E. T. and A. M. It requires but little imagination to
fill out the story of the brief and happy courtship; and two cantos in
"Frithjof's Saga" ("Frithof's Wooing" and "Frithjof's Happiness") supply
an abundance of hints which have a charmingly autobiographical tinge:

"He sat by her side and pressed her soft hand,
And he felt a fond pressure, responsive and bland,
Whilst his love-dreaming gaze
Was returned as the sun's in the moon's placid rays.

"They spoke of days bygone, so gladsome and gay,
When the dew was yet fresh on life's new-trodden way;
For on memory's page
Youth traces its roses; its briers old age.

"She brought him a greeting from dale and from wood,
From the bark-graven runes and the brook's silver flood;
From the dome-crowned cave
Where oaks bravely stream o'er a warrior's grave."[27]

[27] Strong's translation.

But here, happily, Tegner's life ceased to supply material for that of
his hero. For Anna Myhrman, instead of pledging her troth to a
high-born, elderly gentleman, like King Ring, married the young
University instructor, Esaias Tegner; and when her bridal wreath of
myrtle failed to arrive from the city, she twined a wreath of wild
heather instead; and very lovely she looked on her wedding-day with the
modest heather blossoms peeping forth from under her dark locks.

His insecur