settlement of the Norsemen,
which, by the way, had by this time come to be called by the name of
Leifsgaard.

Here, from Thorward's house, there issued tones which indicated the
existence of what is popularly known as a "breeze." Human breezes are
usually irregular, and blow after the manner of counter-currents; but in
Thorward's habitation the breezes almost invariably blew in one
direction, and always issued from the lungs of Freydissa, who possessed
a peculiar knack of keeping and enjoying all the breeze to herself, some
passive creature being the butt against which it impinged.

On the present occasion that butt was Bertha. Indeed, Bertha was a
species of practising-butt, at which Freydissa exercised herself when
all other butts failed, or when she had nothing better to do.

"Don't say to me that you can't help it!" she cried, in her own amiably
shrill tones. "You can help it well enough if you choose. You are
always at it, morning, noon, and night; I'm quite sick of you, girl; I'm
sorry I brought you here; I'd send you back to Greenland to-morrow if I
could. If the ship sank with you on the passage, I'd rejoice--I
_would_! There! don't say it again, now; you're going to--I can see
that by your whimpering look. _Don't_ say you can't help it. Don't!
don't! Do you hear?"

"Indeed, _indeed_ I can't--"

"There! I knew you would," shrieked Freydissa, as she raised herself
from the wash-tub in which she had been manipulating some articles of
clothing as if she were tearing Bertha to pieces--"_why_ can't you?"

"It isn't easy to help weeping," whimpered Bertha, as she continued to
drive her spinning-wheel, "when one thinks of all that has passed, and
poor--"

"Weeping! weeping!" cried Freydissa, diving again into the tub; "do you
call that weeping? _I_ call it downright blubbering. Why, your face is
as much _begrutten_ as if you were a mere baby."

This was true, for what between her grief at the sudden disappearance of
Olaf and Snorro, and the ceaseless assaults of her mistress, who was
uncommonly cross that morning, Bertha's pretty little face was indeed a
good deal swelled and inflamed about the eyes and cheeks. She again
took refuge in silence, but this made no difference to Freydissa, or
rather it acted, if anything, as a provocative of wrath. "Speak, you
hussy!" was usually her irate manner of driving the helpless little
handmaid out of that refuge.

"What were you going to say? Poor what?"