ft behind.

"Oddo could not get a word from you, Erica," observed her mistress; "not
even a look in answer to his `good night'."

"I could not, madam," answered Erica, tears and sobs breaking forth.
"When I think of it all, I am so shocked,--so ashamed!"

"How ashamed?"

"Nipen has been so favourable to us to-day, madam! not a breath of wind
stirring all the morning, so that nobody was disappointed of coming!
And then to serve it in this way! To rob it, and mock it, and brave it
as we have done!--So ungrateful!--so very wrong!"

"We are very sorry for Oddo's trick,--your master and I," said Madame
Erlingsen; "but we are not in the least afraid of any further harm
happening. You know we do not believe that God permits his children to
be at the mercy of evil or capricious spirits. Indeed, Erica, we could
not love God as we should wish to love Him, if we could not trust in Him
as a just and kind protector. Go to rest now, Erica. You have done
quite enough since you left your bed. Go to rest now. Rest your heart
upon Him who has blessed you exceedingly this day. Whatever others do,
do not you be ungrateful to Him. Good sleep to you, Erica! Sleep off
your troubles, that Rolf may see nothing of them in the morning."

Erica smiled; and when Orga and Frolich saw the effect of what their
mother had said, they too went to rest without trembling at every one of
the noises with which a house built of wood is always resounding.

CHAPTER THREE.

OLAF AND HIS NEWS.

When M. Kollsen appeared the next morning, the household had so much of
its usual air that no stranger would have imagined how it had been
occupied the day before. The large room was fresh strewn with evergreen
sprigs; the breakfast-table stood at one end, where each took breakfast,
standing, immediately on coming downstairs. At the bottom of the room
was a busy group. The shoemaker, who travelled this way twice a year,
had appeared this morning, and was already engaged upon the skins which
had been tanned on the farm, and kept in readiness for him. He was
instructing Oddo in the making of the tall boots of the country; and
Oddo was so eager to have a pair in which he might walk knee-deep in the
snow when the frosts should be over, that he gave all his attention to
the work. Peder was twisting strips of leather, thin and narrow, into
whips. Rolf and Hund were silently intent upon a sort of work which the
Norwegian peasant delights in,--carvin