at such bold promises.

"I am thinking that I would like to carry you away like a frozen
bird, lay you under my vest like a young squirrel. Fancy what it
would be to work if something so warm and soft was waiting for one
at home! But if you were well, there would be so many--"

She looked at him with weary surprise, prepared to put him back in
his proper place. But she must have seen again something of the
magic crown about the boy's head, for she had patience with him. He
meant nothing. He had to talk as he did. He was not like others.

"Ah," she said, indifferently, "there are not so many, Petter Nord.
There has hardly been any one in earnest."

But now there came another turn to his advantage. In her suddenly
awoke the eager hunger of a sick person for compassion. She longed
for the tenderness, the pity that the poor workman could give her.
She felt the need of being near that deep, disinterested sympathy.
The sick cannot have enough of it. She wished to read it in his
glance and his whole being. Words meant nothing to her.

"I like to see you here," she said. "Sit here for a while, and tell
me what you have been doing these six years!"

While he talked, she lay and drew in the indescribable something
which passed between them. She heard and yet she did not hear. But
by some strange sympathy she felt herself strengthened and
vivified.

Nevertheless she did get one impression from his story. It took her
into the workman's quarter, into a new world, full of tumultuous
hopes and strength. How they longed and trusted! How they hated and
suffered!

"How happy the oppressed are," she said.

It occurred to her, with a longing for life, that there might be
something for her there, she who always needed oppression and
compulsion to make life worth living.

"If I were well," she said, "perhaps I would have gone there with
you. I should enjoy working my way up with some one I liked."

Petter Nord started. Here was the confession that he had been
waiting for the whole time. "Oh, can you not live!" he prayed.
And he beamed with happiness.

She became observant. "That is love," she said to herself. "And now
he believes that I am also in love. What madness, that Vaermland boy!"

She wished to bring him back to reason, but there was something in
Petter Nord on that day of victory that restrained her. She had not
the heart to spoil his happy mood. She felt compassion for his
foolishness and let him live in it. "It d