e in the evening. In consequence of this
unfortunate circumstance, Gottlieb saw nothing before him except a
vexatious delay in his intended operations; but it soon entered his mind
that Mr. Fabian's absence might be connected in some degree with his
wayward love. The day on which he had visited Magde, in order to take
advantage of Carl's theft, he had also departed from Almvik in the
morning, for during the evening hours his wife was invariably on the
watch.

The more Gottlieb considered this circumstance the more he was convinced
that if his uncle had sown the seed it was done for his own benefit, and
undoubtedly the time was now at hand when he should reap the harvest.

"Ah!" thought Gottlieb, "if I should only be so fortunate as to obtain a
power over my uncle, my suspicions and conjectures would exert a
powerful influence upon his yielding disposition, especially, if I
should place his wife in the back-ground. But to surprise him, with my
own eyes in forbidden grounds, would be as good as to have old Mr.
Lonner safe back in his cottage again."

CHAPTER XIV.

THE PRISONER.

While the incidents last narrated were transpiring on the one side of
the lake, Magde's boat had reached the other, and the occupants of the
boat were about landing, yes, Carl had even secured the boat to the
stake, when one of the little ones in attempting to reach the landing,
fell overboard with a loud cry.

The young and always self-possessed mother, answered the boy's cry, not
by crying out herself, but by springing into the water after him, and
when Carl turned to learn the cause of the confusion, she had already
reached her little boy, and was holding him up at arm's length out of
the water. It was all done in a moment, without the least unnecessary
confusion.

"Carl," said she quietly, "take the boy."

But Carl had lost his self-possession entirely. After he had literally
thrown the boy on the landing, he inquired with a trembling voice:--

"Could you not wait for me? The boy would not have sunk immediately."

"You must not scold me, Carl, I am only a little wet."

She then quietly drew herself to the shore.

"How will you dry yourself now?" inquired Carl in a tone of uneasiness
and vexation.

"O, easily, I will call on Mother Larsson and borrow a dress to wear
while we visit our father, and my clothing will be dry by the time we
return."

Carl was silent. He was displeased because Magde had not called him to
her