tancy, and felt that she had awakened to
something great and new,--something that she had waited for and been
exceedingly glad over; but she could not at once remember just what it
was.

The little room, whose only furniture consisted of a bed, a chair, a
stove, and a small wooden shelf with a mirror over it, was filled with
daylight in spite of the early hour. The sun fell slanting down through
a window set high up in the wall directly over Lisbeth's bed, and the
windowpanes were pictured in bright yellow squares on the floor near
the tiny stove. The corner of one square spread itself against the
stove, and Lisbeth traced it with her eyes as she lay in bed. At the
tip of the corner glimmered something light-green and shiny. Was it
from there that a fine, wonderful fragrance came floating toward her?
She sniffed a little. Yes, indeed! now she remembered. The fragrance
came from the fresh birch twigs she had decorated the room with
yesterday. Out of doors it was spring,--the sprouting, bursting
springtime. To-day the cattle were to be let out and the calves named.
To-day she would begin work in earnest and be a responsible individual.
In short, she would be the herd girl at Hoel Farm.

It was now a month since Lisbeth had come to Hoel Farm, but up to this
time she had been treated merely as company. She had walked about the
place, sauntered after Kjersti here and there in the house, ground the
coffee, and brought out from a bowl in the pantry the small cakes that
they ate with their coffee every afternoon. Frequently, too, she had
had pleasant talks with Kjersti.

As for helping with the animals,--the sheep and the goats had been let
out, to be sure, but nevertheless they did not need her care because
they were allowed, so early in the season, to run about everywhere
except in the garden, and that Bearhunter stood guard over. In the cow
house there was nothing for her to do, for a milkmaid and an
under-milkmaid did the work there. Of course the girl who tended the
flocks ought really to be able to help in milking the cows; but it was
thought that Lisbeth had better wait a year before she tried to do
that,--her hands being rather too small as yet. Lisbeth had kept
measuring her hands every now and then and pulling her fingers to make
them grow; and after a while she had asked the milkmaid if she did not
think they had grown large enough, but the milkmaid did not see that
they were any larger. She could not have very go