am not talking to
you."

"Oh, father," cried the girl, still clinging to his arm, "it is very
wrong in you to talk to him in that way. You know very well that he
would never do us any harm. You know he cannot move anything as large
as the glacier."

"The devil only knows what he can't do," muttered Tharald, with a
little explosive grunt, which might be interpreted as a qualified
concession. The fact was, he was rather ashamed of his senseless
violence, but did not feel it to be consistent with his dignity to
admit unconditionally that he had been in the wrong.

"These learned chaps are not to be trusted, child," he went on, in a
tone of serious remonstrance. "It isn't safe to have one of them
fellows running about loose. I heard of one up in the West Parish
last summer, who was staying with Lars Norby. He was running about
with a bag and a hammer, and poking his nose into every nook and
cranny of the rocks. And all the while he stayed there, the devil ran
riot on the farm. Three cows slinked, the bay mare followed suit, and
the chickens took the cramps, and died as fast as they were hatched.
There was no luck in anything. I tell you, my lass, the Almighty
doesn't like to have anybody peeping into His hand, and telling Him
when to trump and when to throw a low card. That is the long and short
of it. If we don't ship this fellow, smooth-faced and nice as he may
be, we shall have a run of bad luck here, such as you never saw the
like of before."

In the meanwhile, Maurice, not wishing to overhear the conversation,
had entered the house, and father and daughter were left to continue
their parley in private. There was really, as Elsie thought, some
plausibility in the old man's prognostications, and the situation
began to assume a very puzzling aspect to her mind. She admitted that
scientists, viewed as a genus, were objectionable; but insisted that
Fern, to whose personal charms she was keenly alive, was an exception
to the rule. She felt confident that so good a man as he could never
have tried to pry into the secrets of God Almighty. Tharald yielded
grumblingly, inch by inch, and thus saved his dignity, although his
daughter, in the end, prevailed. She obtained his permission to
request the guest to remain, and not interpret too literally the
rather hasty words he had used. Thus a compromise was effected. Fern
suspended his packing, and resumed his objectionable attitude toward
the mysteries of creation.

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