lled there "the
Steward." The dark-appareled lady vanished in the house, and after that
was seen nowhere in the valley for several months. They called her there
"the Colonel's lady," and said Mrs. Astrid Hjelm had experienced a very
strange fate, of which many various histories were in circulation. At
the estate of Semb, which consisted of the wide-stretching valley of
Heimdal, and which was her paternal heritage, had she never, since the
time of her marriage, been seen. Now as widow she had again sought out
the home of her childhood. It was known also and told, that her
attendant was a Swedish girl, who had come with her from one of the
Swedish watering-places, where she had been spending the summer, in
order to superintend her housekeeping; and it was said, that Susanna
Bjoerk ruled as excellently as with sovereign sway over the economical
department, over the female portion of the same, Larina the
parlour-maid, Karina the kitchen-maid, and Petro the cook, as well as
over the farm-servants Mathea, Budeja, and Goeran the cattle-boy,
together with all their subjects of the four-footed and two-legged
races. We will now with these last make a little nearer acquaintance.

THE POULTRY. THE WATER OF STRIFE.

FIRST STRIFE.

"For Norway!"
"For Sweden!"

DISPUTANTS.

The morning was clear and fresh. The September sun shone into the
valley; smoke rose from the cottages. The ladies-mantle, on whose fluted
cups bright pearls trembled; the silver-weed, with its yellow flowers
and silver glittering leaves, shone in the morning sun beside the
footpath, which wound along the moss-grown feet of the backs of the
mountains. It conducted to a spring of the clearest water, which after
it had filled its basin, allowed its playful vein to run murmuring down
to the river.

To this spring, on that beautiful morning, went down Susanna Bjoerk, and
there followed her "cocks and hens, and chickens small."

Before her waddled with consequential gabblings a flock of geese, which
were all snow-white, excepting one--a grey gander. This one tottered
with a desponding look a little behind the others, compelled to this by
a tyrant among the white flock, which, as soon as the grey one attempted
to approach, drove it back with outstretched neck and yelling cries. The
grey gander always fled before the white tyrant; but bald places upon
the head and neck proved that he had not come into this depressed
condition, without those severe