omething that was far, far away, and which no one else saw. The
three little children he had rescued sat huddled at the foot of his
bed. Whenever his eyes wandered for an instant from that which he
saw in the distance, they rested upon the children, and then his
whole face was wreathed in smiles.

"At last they had succeeded in finding the crofter. Big Ingmar
glanced away from the children with a sigh of relief when he heard
Strong Ingmar's heavy step in the hallway. And when his friend came
over to the bedside, he took his hand and patted it gently, saying:
'Do you remember the time when you and I stood on the bridge and
saw heaven open?' 'As if I could ever forget that night when we two
had a vision of Paradise!' Strong Ingmar responded. Then Big Ingmar
turned toward him, his face beaming as if he had the most glorious
news to impart. 'Now I'm going there,' he said. Then the crofter
bent over him and looked straight into his eyes. 'I shall come
after,' he said. Big Ingmar nodded. 'But you know I cannot come
before your son returns from the pilgrimage.' 'Yes, yes, I know,'
Big Ingmar whispered. Then he drew in a few deep breaths and,
before we knew it, he was gone."

The schoolmaster and his wife thought, with the pastor, that it was
a beautiful death. All three of them sat profoundly silent for a
long while.

"But what could Strong Ingmar have meant," asked Mother Stina
abruptly, "when he spoke of the pilgrimage?"

The pastor looked up, somewhat perplexed. "I don't know," he
replied. "Big Ingmar died just after that was said, and I have not
had time to ponder it." He fell to thinking, then he spoke kind of
half to himself: "It was a strange sort of thing to say, you're
right about that, Mother Stina."

"You know, of course, that it has been said of Strong Ingmar that
he can see into the future?" she said reflectively.

The pastor sat stroking his forehead in an effort to collect his
thoughts. "The ways of Providence cannot be reasoned out by the
finite mind," he mused. "I cannot fathom them, yet seeking to know
them is the most satisfying thing in all the world."

KARIN, DAUGHTER OF INGMAR

Autumn had come and school was again open. One morning, when the
children were having their recess, the schoolmaster and Gertrude
went into the kitchen and sat down at the table, where Mother Stina
served them with coffee. Before they had finished their cups a
visitor arrived.

The caller was a young peasant named