thing wrong again,--neither cut the cord of the
spinning-wheel, nor let the sheep loose, nor go down to the sea alone.
He fell asleep lying there, and he dreamed that the goat had reached
heaven. There the Lord was sitting, with a long beard, as in the
Catechism, and the goat stood munching at the leaves of a shining tree;
but Oyvind sat alone on the roof, and, could get no higher. Then
something wet was thrust right against his ear, and he started up.
"Ba-a-a-a!" he heard, and it was the goat that had returned to him.

"What! have you come back again?" With these words he sprang up,
seized it by the two fore-legs, and danced about with it as if it were
a brother. He pulled it by the beard, and was on the point of going in
to his mother with it, when he heard some one behind him, and saw the
little girl sitting on the greensward beside him. Now he understood
the whole thing, and he let go of the goat.

"Is it you who have brought the goat?"

She sat tearing up the grass with her hands, and said, "I was not
allowed to keep it; grandfather is up there waiting."

While the boy stood staring at her, a sharp voice from the road above
called, "Well!"

Then she remembered what she had to do: she rose, walked up to Oyvind,
thrust one of her dirt-covered hands into his, and, turning her face
away, said, "I beg your pardon."

But then her courage forsook her, and, flinging herself on the goat,
she burst into tears.

"I believe you had better keep the goat," faltered Oyvind, looking
away.

"Make haste, now!" said her grandfather, from the hill; and Marit got
up and walked, with hesitating feet, upward.

"You have forgotten your garter," Oyvind shouted after her. She turned
and bestowed a glance, first on the garter, then on him. Finally she
formed a great resolve, and replied, in a choked voice, "You may keep
it."

He walked up to her, took her by the hand, and said, "I thank you!"

"Oh, there is nothing to thank me for," she answered, and, drawing a
piteous sigh, went on.

Oyvind sat down on the grass again, the goat roaming about near him;
but he was no longer as happy with it as before.

CHAPTER II.

The goat was tethered near the house, but Oyvind wandered off, with his
eyes fixed on the cliff. The mother came and sat down beside him; he
asked her to tell him stories about things that were far away, for now
the goat was no longer enough to content him. So his mother told him
how once everyth