it. The uninitiated were hardly prepared to understand it, and one
person, at least, reviewed it with suspicion--this was Kajsa. The
supercilious smile with which she listened to the story of their
adventures was indescribable.

"Was it sensible to expose yourself to such dangers?" was her only
comment.

But the first opportunity that presented itself she did not fail to say
to Erik:

"I suppose that now you will do nothing more about this tiresome matter,
since the Irishman is dead."

What a difference there was between these cold criticisms and the
letters full of sympathy and tenderness that Erik soon received from
Noroe.

Vanda told him in what a state of anxiety she and her mother had passed
these long months, how the travelers had been ever present in their
thoughts, and how happy they were when they heard of their safe return.
If the expedition had not accomplished all that Erik hoped, they begged
him not to worry himself too much about it. He must know that if he
never succeeded in finding his own family he had one in the poor
Norwegian village, where he would be tenderly cared for like one of
themselves. Would he not soon come and see them, could he not stay with
them one little month. It was the sincere desire of his adopted mother
and of his little sister Vanda, etc., etc.

The envelope also contained three pretty flowers, gathered on the
borders of the fiord, and their perfume seemed to bring back vividly to
Erik his gay and careless childhood. Ah, how sweet these loving words
were to his poor disappointed heart, and they enabled him to fulfill
more easily the concluding duties appertaining to the expedition. He
hoped soon to be able to go and tell them all he felt. The voyage of the
"Alaska" had equaled in grandeur that of the "Vega." The name of Erik
was everywhere associated with the glorious name of Nordenskiold. The
journals had a great deal to say about the new periplus. The ships of
all nations anchored at Stockholm united in doing honor to this national
victor. The learned societies came in a body to congratulate the
commander and crew of the "Alaska." The public authorities proposed a
national recompense for them.

All these praises were painful to Erik. His conscience told him that the
principal motive of this expedition on his part had been purely a
personal one, and he felt scrupulous about accepting honors which
appeared to him greatly exaggerated. He therefore availed himself of the