ad looked so rosy a while ago was now either
blue or gray. Here and there in the forest could be seen a shiny
leaf that gleamed in the twilight like the red eye of a troll.

Gertrude was astonished at Ingmar having talked so much and so
long. He seemed like another person since coming in on home ground;
he carried his head higher than usual, and stepped with firmer
tread. Gertrude did not quite like this change in him; it made her
feel uneasy. All the same she spunked up, and began to tease Ingmar
about his going home to dance.

Then at last they came to a little gray hut. Candles were burning
inside, the windows being too small to let in much light. They
caught the sound of violin music and the clatter of dancing feet.
Still the girls paused, wonderingly. "Is it here?" they questioned.
"Can any one dance here? The place looks too small to hold even one
couple."

"Go along inside," said Gabriel; "the hut isn't as tiny as looks."

Outside the door, which was open, stood a group of boys and girls
who had danced themselves into a warm glow; the girls were fanning
themselves with their headshawls, and the boys had pulled off their
short black jackets in order to dance in their bright green red-sleeved
waistcoats.

The newcomers edged their way through the crowd by the door into
the hut. The first person they saw was Strong Ingmar--a little fat
man, with a big head and a long beard.

"He must be related to the elves and the trolls," thought Gertrude.
The old man was standing upon the hearth, playing his fiddle, so as
not to be in the way of the dancers.

The hut was larger than it had appeared from the outside, but it
looked poor and dilapidated. The bare pine walls were worm-eaten,
and the beams were blackened by smoke. There were no curtains at
the windows, and no cover on the table. It was evident that Strong
Ingmar lived by himself. His children had all left him and gone to
America, and the only pleasure the old man had in his loneliness
was to gather the young folks around him on a Saturday evening, and
let them dance to his fiddle.

It was dim in the hut, and suffocatingly close. Couple after couple
were whirling around in there. Gertrude could scarcely breathe, and
wanted to hurry out again, but it was an impossibility to get past
the tight wedge of humanity that blocked the doorway.

Strong Ingmar played with a sure stroke and in perfect time, but
the instant that young Ingmarsson came into the room he dr