three legs without
stirring. It is the dog from the Upper Heidegards, and close behind
him another rustling is heard. The dog turns his head and wags his
tail; now Marit appears.

A bush caught her dress; she turned to free it, and so she was standing
when Oyvind saw her first. Her head was bare, her hair twisted up as
girls usually wear it in every-day attire; she had on a thick plaid
dress without sleeves, and nothing about the neck except a turned-down
linen collar. She had just stolen away from work in the fields, and
had not ventured on any change of dress. Now she looked up askance and
smiled; her white teeth shone, her eyes sparkled beneath the
half-closed lids. Thus she stood for a moment working with her
fingers, and then she came forward, growing rosier and rosier with each
step. He advanced to meet her, and took her hand between both of his.
Her eyes were fixed on the ground, and so they stood.

"Thank you for all your letters," was the first thing he said; and when
she looked up a little and laughed, he felt that she was the most
roguish troll he could meet in a wood; but he was captured, and she,
too, was evidently caught.

"How tall you have grown," said she, meaning something quite different.

She looked at him more and more, laughed more and more, and he laughed,
too; but they said nothing. The dog had seated himself on the slope,
and was surveying the gard. Thore observed the dog's head from the
water, but could not for his life understand what it could be that was
showing itself on the cliff above.

But the two had now let go of each other's hands and were beginning to
talk a little. And when Oyvind was once under way he burst into such a
rapid stream of words that Marit had to laugh at him.

"Yes, you see, this is the way it is when I am happy--truly happy, you
see; and as soon as it was settled between us two, it seemed as if
there burst open a lock within me--wide open, you see."

She laughed. Presently she said,--

"I know almost by heart all the letters you sent me."

"And I yours! But you always wrote such short ones."

"Because you always wanted them to be so long."

"And when I desired that we should write more about something, then you
changed the subject."

"'I show to the best advantage when you see my tail,'[1] said the
hulder."

[Footnote 1: The hulder in the Norse folk-lore appears like a beautiful
woman, and usually wears a blue petticoat and a white sword; bu