. She
thought that she was not as far removed from all other living creatures
as people usually think. She understood much better than ever before,
how birds fared. They had their constant worries for home and children;
they, as she. There was surely not such a great difference between them
and her as she had heretofore believed.

Then she happened to think that it was as good as settled that these
thousands of swans and ducks and loons would lose their homes here by
Takern. "It will be very hard for them," she thought. "Where shall they
bring up their children now?"

She stood still and mused on this. It appeared to be an excellent and
agreeable accomplishment to change a lake into fields and meadows, but
let it be some other lake than Takern; some other lake, which was not
the home of so many thousand creatures.

She remembered how on the following day the proposition to lower the
lake was to be decided, and she wondered if this was why her little son
had been lost--just to-day.

Was it God's meaning that sorrow should come and open her heart--just
to-day--before it was too late to avert the cruel act?

She walked rapidly up to the house, and began to talk with her husband
about this. She spoke of the lake, and of the birds, and said that she
believed it was God's judgment on them both. And she soon found that he
was of the same opinion.

They already owned a large place, but if the lake-draining was carried
into effect, such a goodly portion of the lake-bottom would fall to
their share that their property would be nearly doubled. For this reason
they had been more eager for the undertaking than any of the other shore
owners. The others had been worried about expenses, and anxious lest the
draining should not prove any more successful this time than it was the
last. Per Ola's father knew in his heart that it was he who had
influenced them to undertake the work. He had exercised all his
eloquence, so that he might leave to his son a farm as large again as
his father had left to him.

He stood and pondered if God's hand was back of the fact that Takern had
taken his son from him on the day before he was to draw up the contract
to lay it waste. The wife didn't have to say many words to him, before
he answered: "It may be that God does not want us to interfere with His
order. I'll talk with the others about this to-morrow, and I think we'll
conclude that all may remain as it is."

While the farmer-folk were talk