flowers in the window.

He was obliged to rise also. "Perhaps she will answer me presently,"
he thought; and this belief gave him words, awkward perhaps, but
fairly plain.

She only shook her head and did not look up.

He walked off in a rage, and when he turned and looked at the house
again--the little doll's house--he longed to throw it bodily into the
sea.

He spent the evening, while waiting for the steamer to Christiania,
with Peter Klausson and a few friends, and it was not long before
they discovered on what errand he had been, and how he had sped. They
knew, too, how he had fared on former occasions. The amount which
Hjalmar Olsen drank was in proportion to his chagrin; and the next
morning he awoke on board the steamer in a deplorable condition.

Not long afterwards Ella received a well-written letter of excuse, in
which he explained that his coming at that time had been well meant,
and that it was only when he was there that he realised how foolish it
had been. She must not be vexed with him for it. In the course of a
month she again received a letter. He hoped that she had forgiven him;
he for his part could not forget her. There was nothing more added.
Ella was pleased with both the letters. They were well expressed and
they showed constancy; but it never occurred to her for a moment that
this indirect offer could be received in any other way than before.

She had gone to Christiania in order to perfect herself in the piano
and in book-keeping. She added the latter because she had always had a
turn for arithmetic. She felt altogether unsettled. Her mother was
dead; she had inherited the house and a small fortune, and she wanted
to try and help herself. She did not associate with any one in the
strange town. She was used to dreaming and making plans without a
confidant.

From Aksel Aaroe came wonderful tidings. After he had sung before a
large party in New York a wealthy old man had invited him to come and
see him, and since then they had lived together like father and son.
So the story ran in the town long before there came a letter from Aaroe
himself; but when it arrived, it entirely confirmed the rumour. It was
after this that Ella received a third letter from Hjalmar Olsen. He
asked in respectful terms if she would take it amiss if he were to pay
her a visit when he came home: he knew where she was living. Before
she had arrived at a conclusion as to how she should answer, a
paragraph appeared i