until she had finished her
work. They were out extremely early to-day!

* * * * *

However strange it may seem, Lisbeth Longfrock, soon after her arrival
at Hoel Saeter, had become a prime favorite with the other herders. The
day after her first painful experiences the boys, as proposed, had met
her behind the hill, Peter first and then Ole. No reference was made to
the previous day; it was merely taken for granted that in future she
would be with them. Ole said that she could look after their animals,
together with her own, while they went off to bathe. Peter thought she
could, too. So she agreed to the arrangement.

But the boys did not play very long on the bank of the pond that day
when they had finished bathing. It was not much fun, after all, to be
down there by themselves.

So it had come to pass that Lisbeth and her animals never came
strolling over the hill in the morning without meeting the boys. They
generally came at nearly the same time, each from the direction of his
own saeter, apparently trying to see who could be the first to give the
call. But when they met each did his best to make out to the other that
he had come there by the merest chance, both sheepishly realizing that
the very evening before they had put on big-boy airs about "that young
one whom they could never get rid of," and had said that they would go
off in an entirely different direction the next day, to avoid her if
possible.

Often the boys would have athletic contests, turning handsprings and
wrestling from one meal-time to another because neither boy was willing
to give up beaten. More than once in a single morning or afternoon
would Lisbeth have to remind them to look after their animals, because,
completely forgotten by the boys, the flocks had strayed nearly out of
sight.

Occasionally it happened that one boy would reach Hoel Saeter ten or
fifteen minutes before the other and would find Lisbeth ready to set
out. In that case the first comer would insist that he and Lisbeth
should start out by themselves, urging that the other boy had probably
gone somewhere else that day. Such times were almost the pleasantest,
Lisbeth thought, for then the one boy had always so much to show her
that the other boy did not know about,--a marshy ledge, white as snow
with cloudberry blossoms, where there would be many, many berries in
the autumn (that ledge they could keep for themselves,--it was not
w