rich harvest of legends at Kvaerk, at
least judging by the time he stayed there; for days and weeks passed,
and he had yet said nothing of going. Not that anybody wished him to
go; no, on the contrary, the longer he stayed the more indispensable he
seemed to all; and Lage Ulfson could hardly think without a shudder of
the possibility of his ever having to leave them. For Aasa, his only
child, was like another being in the presence of this stranger; all that
weird, forest-like intensity, that wild, half supernatural tinge in her
character which in a measure excluded her from the blissful feeling of
fellowship with other men, and made her the strange, lonely creature
she was,--all this seemed to vanish as dew in the morning sun when
Vigfusson's eyes rested upon her; and with every day that passed, her
human and womanly nature gained a stronger hold upon her. She followed
him like his shadow on all his wanderings, and when they sat down
together by the wayside, she would sing, in a clear, soft voice, an
ancient lay or ballad, and he would catch her words on his paper, and
smile at the happy prospect of perpetuating what otherwise would
have been lost. Aasa's love, whether conscious or not, was to him an
everlasting source of strength, was a revelation of himself to himself,
and a clearing and widening power which brought ever more and more of
the universe within the scope of his vision. So they lived on from
day to day and from week to week, and, as old Lage remarked, never had
Kvaerk been the scene of so much happiness. Not a single time during
Vigfusson's stay had Aasa fled to the forest, not a meal had she missed,
and at the hours for family devotion she had taken her seat at the big
table with the rest and apparently listened with as much attention and
interest. Indeed, all this time Aasa seemed purposely to avoid the dark
haunts of the woods, and, whenever she could, chose the open highway;
not even Vigfusson's entreaties could induce her to tread the tempting
paths that led into the forest's gloom.

"And why not, Aasa?" he would say; "summer is ten times summer there
when the drowsy noonday spreads its trembling maze of shadows between
those huge, venerable trunks. You can feel the summer creeping into your
very heart and soul, there!"

"Oh, Vigfusson," she would answer, shaking her head mournfully, "for a
hundred paths that lead in, there is only one that leads out again, and
sometimes even that one is nowhere to