ir in which Magnhild had seen
her the first day, took the same walk to the church and back each day,
and never failed to be ready for her duties on the stroke of the clock.
She gradually increased in weight until she became excessively stout;
she continued to wear her neck bare and her sleeves open, furthermore to
speak in the same husky voice, which no effort on her part had ever yet
been able to clear.

The priest's daughters became stout and heavy like their father,
although they had small round heads like their mother. Magnhild and they
lived as friends, in other words, they slept in the same room, and
worked, played, and ate together.

There were never any ideas afloat in this parish. If any chanced to find
their way there from without they got no farther than the priest's
study. The priest was not communicative. At the utmost he read aloud to
his family some new or old novel that he had found diverting.

One evening they were all sitting round the table, and the priest,
having yielded to the entreaties of the united family, was reading aloud
the "Pickwick Club."

The kitchen door slowly opened and a large bald head, with a snub nose
and smiling countenance, was thrust in. A short leg in very wide
trousers was next introduced, and this was followed by a crooked and
consequently still shorter one. The whole figure stooped as it turned on
the crooked leg to shut the door. The intruder thus presented to the
party the back of the before mentioned large head, with its narrow rim
of hair, a pair of square-built shoulders, and an extraordinarily large
seat, only half covered by a pea-jacket. Again he turned in a slanting
posture toward the assembled party, and once more presented his smiling
countenance with its snub-nose. The young girls bowed low over their
work, a suppressed titter arose first from one piece of sewing and then
from another.

"Is this the saddler?" asked the priest, rising to his feet.

"Yes," was the reply, as the new-comer limped forward, holding out a
hand so astonishingly large and with such broad round finger tips that
the priest was forced to look at it as he took it in his own. The hand
was offered to the others; and when it came to Magnhild's turn she burst
out laughing just as her hand disappeared within it. One peal of
laughter after another was heard and suppressed. The priest hastened to
remark that they were reading the "Pickwick Club."

"Aha!" observed the saddler, "there is enough