lowed him in its foaming depths.
For many years after this there wandered daily upon Mari-Stien, a pale
figure, whose beautiful features spoke of silent insanity, and stood
bent down over the stream, and seemed to talk with some one down in its
depths. With melancholy joy in her countenance returned she ever from
her wandering, and said to her people in the cottage, "I have spoken
with him, and he besought me to come to him every day, and to tell him
how I love. It would be wrong to refuse him this; he is so good and
loves me so truly."

Thus went she, even when the wind blew her silver hair around her
wrinkled cheeks; thus she went until a merciful voice called the weary
wanderer to ascend the path of heaven to rest and joy, in the arms of
the beloved.

Less mournful, but not the less interesting for Susanna, was the old
legend of Halgrim.

Stormannadauen (the Black Death) had raged through Norway, and cut off
more than two-thirds of its population, and desolated whole extents of
country and large populous districts. In Uldvig's Valley, in Hardanger,
a young peasant of the name of Halgrim alone, of all the people who had
died there, remained alive. He raised himself from the sick bed on which
he lay surrounded by the dead, and went out in order to seek for living
people.

It was spring, and the larks sang loud in the blue clear air; the
birch-wood clothed itself in tender green; the stream, with its melting
snow-drifts, wound down the mountains singing on its way; but no plough
furrowed the loosened earth, and from the heights was heard no wood-horn
calling the cattle at feeding time. All was still and dead in the
habitations of men. Halgrim went from valley to valley, from cottage to
cottage; everywhere death stared him in the face, and he recognised the
corpses of early friends and acquaintance. Upon this, he began to
believe that he was alone in the world, and despair seized on his soul,
and he determined also to die. But as he was just about to throw himself
down from a rock, his faithful dog sprang up to him, caressed him, and
lamented in the expressive language of anguish. Halgrim bethought
himself, and stepped back from the brink of the abyss; he embraced his
dog; his tears flowed, and despair withdrew from his softened heart. He
began his wandering anew. Thoughts of love led him towards the parish of
Graven, where he had first seen and won the love of Hildegunda.

It was evening, and the sun was setting a