g mind, and occupied with domestic
business more entirely than in her mistress's house. So Madame
Erlingsen was well pleased that Erica was betrothed; and she could only
have been better satisfied if she had been married at once.

For this marrying, however, the young people must wait. There was no
house, or houseman's place, vacant for them at present. There was a
prospect, however. The old houseman Peder, who had served Erlingsen's
father and Erlingsen himself for fifty-eight years, could now no longer
do the weekly work on the farm which was his rent for his house, field,
and cow. He was blind and old. His aged wife, Ulla, could not leave
the house; and it was the most she could do to keep the dwelling in
order, with occasional help from one and another. Housemen who make
this sort of contract with farmers in Norway are never turned out. They
have their dwelling and field for their own life and that of their
wives. What they do, when disabled, is to take in a deserving young man
to do their work for the farmer, on the understanding that he succeeds
to the houseman's place on the death of the old people. Peder and Ulla
had made this agreement with Erica's lover, Rolf; and it was understood
that his marriage with Erica should take place whenever the old people
should die.

It was impossible for Erica herself to fear that Nipen was offended, at
the outset of this festival day. If he had chosen to send a wind, the
guests could not have come; for no human frame can endure travelling in
a wind in Nordland on a January day. Happily, the air was so calm that
a flake of snow, or a lock of eider-down, would have fallen straight to
the ground. At two o'clock, when the short daylight was gone, the stars
were shining so brightly, that the company who came by the fiord would
be sure to have an easy voyage. Almost all came by the fiord, for the
only road from Erlingsen's house led to so few habitations, and was so
narrow, steep, and rocky, that an arrival by that way was a rare event.
The path was now, however, so smooth with frozen snow, that more than
one sledge attempted and performed the descent. Erlingsen and some of
his servants went out to the porch, on hearing music from the water, and
stood with lighted pine-torches to receive their guests, when,
approaching from behind, they heard the sound of the sleigh-bells, and
found that company was arriving both by sea and land.

It was a pretty sight,--such an arri