leep. It was even more exciting when she began to take notice;
when only a week old she knew their faces, and at three she laughed
to Soeren. He was quite foolish that day and in the evening had to go
down to the tap-room to tell them all about it. Had any one ever
known such a child? She could laugh already! And when she first
began to understand play, it was difficult to tear oneself
away--particularly for Soeren. Every other moment he had to go in and
caress her with his crooked fingers. Nothing was so delightful as to
have the room filled with her gurgling, and Maren had to chase him
away from the cradle, at least twenty times a day. And when she took
her first toddling steps!--that little helpless, illegitimate child
who had come defiantly into existence, and who, in return for life
brightened the days of the two old wornout people. It had become
pleasant once more to wake in the morning to a new day: life was
worth living again.

Her stumbling, slow walk was in itself a pleasure; and the
contemplative gravity with which she crossed the doorstep, both
hands full, trotted down the road--straight on as if there was
nothing behind her, and with drooping head--was altogether
irresistible. Then Maren would slink out round the corner and beckon
to Soeren to make haste and come, and Soeren would throw down his ax
and come racing over the grass of the downs with his tongue between
his lips. "Heaven only knows what she is up to now," said he, and
the two crept after her down the road. When she had wandered a
little distance, in deep thought, she would suddenly realize her
loneliness, and begin to howl, a picture of misery, left alone and
forsaken. Then the two old people would appear on the scene, and she
would throw herself into their arms overjoyed at finding them again.

Then quite suddenly she got over it--the idea that things were gone
forever if she lost sight of them for a moment. She began to look
out and up into people's faces: hitherto, she had only seen the feet
of those who came within her horizon. One day she actually went off
by herself, having caught sight of the houses down in the hamlet.
They had to look after her more seriously now that the outside world
had tempted her.

"We're not enough for her, seems like," said Soeren despondently,
"got a fancy for the unknown already."

It was the first time she had turned away from them, and Soeren
recognized in that something of what he had experienced before,