l with little herrings. This course,
with which dinners in Norway often begin, is so served, that every guest
has a little plate beside him, on which lie the little white herrings,
and they eat alternately a piece of herring and a spoonful of gruel,
which looks very well, and tastes very good.

Harald, towards spring, was very much occupied with work and workpeople,
so that he had but little time to devote to Susanna, either for good or
bad. But he had discovered that possibly in time he might have a weak
chest, and he visited her, therefore, every morning in the dairy that he
might receive a cup of new milk from her hand. For this, he gave her in
return fresh spring-flowers, or, by way of change, a nettle (which was
always thrown violently into a corner), and for the rest attentively
remarked the occurrences in the dairy, and Susanna's movements, whilst
she poured the milk out of the pails through a sieve into the pans, and
arranged them on their shelves, whereby it happened that he would forget
himself in the following monologue--

"See, that one may call a knack! How well she looks at her work, and
with that cheerful, friendly face! Everything that she touches is well
done;--everything improves and flourishes under her eye. If she were
only not so violent and passionate!--but it is not in her heart, there
never was a better heart than hers. Men and animals love her, and are
well off under her care--Happy the man who--hum!"

Shall we not at the same time cast a glance into Susanna's heart? It is
rather curious there. The fact was, that Harald had,--partly by his
provocativeness and naughtiness, and partly by his friendship, his
story-telling, and his native worth, which Susanna discovered more and
more,--so rooted himself into all her thoughts and feelings, that it was
impossible for her to displace him from them. In anger, in gratitude, in
evil, in good, at all times, must she think of him. Many a night she
lay down with the wish never to see him again, but always awoke the next
morning with the secret desire to meet with him again. The terms on
which she stood with him resembled April weather, which we may be able
the clearest to see on--

A MAY DAY.

The first time, yes, the first time flings
A glory even on trivial things;
It passes soon, a moment's falling,
Then it is also past recalling.

The grass itself has such a prime;
Man prizes most spring's flowery time,
When first the verdure