e. Then Anne-Marie
remembered that Maurits had laughed at his uncle because in all his
house he only had two books, and those were Afzelius' "Fairy Tales"
and Noesselt's "Popular Stories for Ladies." "But those he knows,"
Maurits had said.

Anne-Marie had found the story pretty. She liked it when Bengt
Lagman had pearls sewn on the breadth of homespun. She saw Maurits
before her; how royally proud he would have looked when ordering
the pearls! That was just the sort of thing Maurits would have done
well.

But when uncle had come to that part of the story where Bengt
Lagman went into the woods to avoid the meeting with his angry
brother, and instead let his young wife meet the storm, then it
became so plain that uncle understood Maurits had gone hunting to
escape his wrath and that he knew how she thought to win him over.
--Yes, yesterday, then they had been able to make plans, Maurits
and she, how she should coquet with uncle, but to-day she had no
thought of carrying them out. Oh, she had never behaved so
foolishly! Every drop of blood streamed into her face, and her
knife and fork fell with a terrible clatter out of her hands down
on her plate.

But Uncle Theodore had shown no mercy and had gone on with the
story until he came to that princely speech: "Had my brother not
done it, I would have done it myself." He said it with such a
strange emphasis that she was forced to look up and to meet his
laughing brown eyes.

And when he saw the trouble staring from her eyes, he began to
laugh like a boy. "What do you think," he cried, "Bengt Lagman
thought when he came home and heard that 'Had my brother?' I think
he stopped at home the next time."

Tears rose to Downie's eyes, and when Uncle saw that he laughed
louder. "Yes, it is a fine partisan my nephew has chosen," he
seemed to say, "You are not playing your part, my little girl." And
every time she had looked at him the brown eyes had repeated: "Had
my brother not done it, I would have done it myself." Downie was
not quite sure that the eyes did not say "nephew." And fancy how
she behaved. She began to cry, and rushed from the room.

But it was not then that "it" came, nor during the walk of the
forenoon.

Then she was occupied with something quite different. Then she was
overcome with pleasure at the beautiful place and that nature was
so wonderfully near. She felt as if she had found again something
she had lost long, long ago.

People thought she was a c