s old Ulla had quoted the good bishop of Tronyem of her day.

In a few hours many of the people were gone for the present,--some being
wanted at home, and others for the expected affair on the fiord. The
bishop and M. Kollsen had thought themselves alone in their shady
retreat when they saw Erica lingering near among the trees. With a kind
smile, the bishop beckoned to her, and bade her sit down, and tell him
whether he had not been right in promising, a while ago, that God would
soothe her sorrows with time, as is the plan of his kind providence. He
remembered well the story of the death of her mother. Erica replied
that not only had her grief been soothed, but that she was now so
blessed that her heart was burdened with its gratitude. She wished,--
she needed to pour out all that she felt; but M. Kollsen was there, and
she could not speak quite freely before him. He, for his part, observed
that, if she was now so happy, she must have given up some of her
superstitions, for certainly he had never known any one less likely to
enjoy peace than Erica, on all occasions on which he had seen her,--so
great was her dread of evil spirits on every hand.

"I wish," said Erica, with a sigh,--"I do wish I knew what to think
about Nipen."

"Ay! here it comes," observed M. Kollsen, folding his arms, as if for
an argument.

Encouraged by the bishop, Erica told the whole story of the last few
months, from the night of Oddo's prank to that which found her at the
feet of her friend, for she had cast herself down at the bishop's feet,
sitting as she had done in her childhood, looking up in his face.

"You want to know what I think of all this?" said the bishop, when she
had done. "I think that you could hardly help believing as you have
believed, amidst these strange circumstances, and with your mind full of
the common accounts of Nipen. Yet I do not believe there is any such
spirit as Nipen, or any demon in the forest, or on the mountain. Did
you ever hear what spirits everybody in this country believed in before
the blessed gospel was brought to old Norway?"

"I have heard of Thor, that yonder islet was named after; and that, when
there was a tempest, with rolling thunder, such as we never hear in this
region, the people used to say it was Thor driving his chariot over the
mountain-ridge."

"That was what people said of the thunder. What they said of fire and
frost was that they were giants called Loke and Thrym, wh