udge, Lars Gunnarson," he said in warm, reassuring
tones, "but if you have something on your conscience, you can come
to me. I shall look for you every day. Only don't put it off too
long!"

AN OLD TROLL

The second winter of the little girl's absence from home was an
extremely severe one. By the middle of January it had grown so
unbearably cold that snow had to be banked around all the little
huts in the Ashdales as a protection against the elements, and
every night the cows had to be covered with straw, to keep them
from freezing to death.

It was so cold that the bread froze; the cheese froze, and even the
butter turned to ice. The fire itself seemed unable to hold its
warmth. It mattered not how many logs one laid in the fireplace,
the heat spread no farther than to the edge of the hearth.

One day, when the winter was at its worst, Jan decided that instead
of going out to his work he would stay at home and help Katrina
keep the fire alive. Neither he nor the wife ventured outside the
hut that day, and the longer they remained indoors the more they
felt the cold. At five o'clock in the afternoon, when it began to
grow dark, Katrina said they might as well "turn in"; it was no
good their sitting up any longer, torturing themselves.

During the afternoon Jan had gone over to the window, time and
again, and peered out through a little corner of a pane that had
remained clear, though the rest of the glass was thickly crusted
with frost flowers. And now he went back there again.

"You can go to bed, Katrina dear," he said as he stood looking out,
"but I've got to stay up a while longer."

"Well I never!" ejaculated Katrina. "Why should you stay up? Why
can't you go to bed as well as I?"

But Jan did not reply to her questions. "It's strange I haven't
seen Agrippa Praestberg pass by yet," he said.

"Is it him you're waiting for!" snapped Katrina. "He hasn't been so
extra nice to you that you need feel called upon to sit up and
freeze on his account!"

Jan put up his hand with a sweep of authority--this being the only
mannerism acquired during his emperorship which had not been
dropped. There was no fear of Praestberg coming to them, he told
her. He had heard that the old man had been invited to a drinking
bout at a fisherman's but here in the Ashdales, but so far he had
not seen him go by.

"I suppose he has had the good sense to stay at home," said Katrina.

It grew colder and colder. The corners of th