xpected in this world, one can't ever be ready for them."

"Just take one day at a time, Karin, and don't bother about what's
coming," said Pelle. "We can't any of us say what is to become of
Nono, not even Jan, who is so clear in his mind. We don't any of us
know what to-morrow may bring. He'll have just what the Lord has
planned for him. Women are better at bringing up 'critters' than
driving them when they are brought up. They are about the same with
boys. Mothers should bring up their boys right, and then let the Lord
do what he pleases with them afterwards. Isn't it so, Karin?"

"Yes--maybe--I do suppose you are right, Pelle, and I'll try to
remember it. But a man don't know how a woman feels."

"It's well they don't," said Jan curtly. "It wouldn't have suited what
I've had to do in life to be like them. Karin's heart is bigger than
her head; but things have worked well here so far, and it's likely it
will be so to the end," and Jan looked kindly after Karin as she went
off to feed the chickens, with Decima in her train, evidently thinking
her mother was the injured party.

At the bottom of his heart Jan was convinced that he had about the best
wife in the world.

CHAPTER XIX.

PIETRO.

The statue of the princess had long since passed away, and the thoughts
of the pleasant scenes around it had melted into the cheerful memories
of the past. In the cottage there were ever the photographs of the
beautiful white figure and of the family group, and under them an
almost perfect likeness of Nono.

The real Nono was far away in the land of his forefathers. He was
sorely missed in the home where he had been so tenderly cared for.
Blackie was, as usual, wearing deep mourning, though he showed no
emotional signs of feeling the absence of his master. Blackie, like
many a precocious two-legged creature, had not developed into the
wonder that was expected. Example and daily association had made him
more and more like his fellows; and Nono had not been long away from
the golden house before Jan began to talk about the little black pig as
the pork of the future.

Karin had supposed that the parting with Nono would be like the parting
with her other boys--a separation only lightened by letters coming
rarely, merely to tell that the absentees were well and doing famously.
With Nono it was quite otherwise. The letters from him came weekly,
almost as regularly as Sunday itself. And such letters as they