-she didn't understand.

"What does it say?" she asked, rather gravely.

Here was a job--to translate the paragraph into Norwegian! Besides, it
would not do to translate it literally, so I made a sort of impromptu
paraphrase upon it.

"Oh! it says Miss Marit is a very pretty young lady."

"Ja!"--blushing and looking somewhat astonished.

"And Miss Marit is a very nice housekeeper."

"Ja."

"And Miss Marit makes splendid coffee, and thoroughly understands how
to cook a beefsteak."

"Ja!"

"And Miss Marit would make a most excellent wife for any young
gentleman who could succeed in winning her affections!"

"Nei!" said the young lady, blushing again, and looking more
astonished than ever.

"Ja," said I, "it is all in print"--adding, with an internal
reservation, "or ought to be."

Who can blame me for paying tribute to Miss Marit's kindness and
hospitality? She is certainly deserving of much higher praise than
that bestowed upon her, and I hope Mr. Bennett will pardon me for the
liberal style of my translation. If he didn't mean all I said, let the
responsibility rest upon me, for I certainly meant every word of it.

The farming districts are limited chiefly to the valleys along the
river-courses, and such portions of arable lands as lie along the
shores of the Fjords. A large proportion of the country is extremely
wild and rugged, and covered, for the most part, with dense pine
forests. The peasants generally own their own farms, which are small,
and cut up into patches of pasture, grain-lands, and tracts of forest.
Even the most unpromising nooks among the rocks, in many parts of the
Gudbransdalen Valley, where plows are wholly unavailable, are rooted
up by means of hoes, and planted with oats and other grain. I
sometimes saw as many as forty or fifty of these little arable patches
perched up among the rocks, hundreds of feet above the roofs of the
houses, where it would seem dangerous for goats to browse. The log
cabins peep out from among the rocks and pine-clad cliffs all along
the course of the Logen, giving the country a singular speckled
appearance. This, it must be remembered, is one of the best districts
in the interior. The richest agricultural region is said to be that
bordering on the shores of the Miosen. One of the comforts enjoyed by
the peasants, and without which it would scarcely be possible for them
to exist in such a rigorous climate, consists in the unlimited
quantity of fuel to whi