Johanna fell into great confusion. "Oh, but, my precious, the old
lady asked for you, and she's always so angry if I can't give an
excuse. Anyhow, she needn't talk; she's always tearing up something
with that motor of hers."

When her aunt clattered down to the kitchen, Clara went to dust the
parlor. Since there was not much there to dust, this did not take
very long. Olaf had built the house new for her before their
marriage, but her interest in furnishing it had been short-lived. It
went, indeed, little beyond a bath-tub and her piano. They had
disagreed about almost every other article of furniture, and Clara
had said she would rather have her house empty than full of things
she didn't want. The house was set in a hillside, and the west
windows of the parlor looked out above the kitchen yard thirty feet
below. The east windows opened directly into the front yard. At one
of the latter, Clara, while she was dusting, heard a low whistle.
She did not turn at once, but listened intently as she drew her
cloth slowly along the round of a chair. Yes, there it was:

"_I dreamt that I dwelt in ma-a-arble halls,_"

She turned and saw Nils Ericson laughing in the sunlight, his hat in
his hand, just outside the window. As she crossed the room he leaned
against the wire screen. "Aren't you at all surprised to see me,
Clara Vavrika?"

"No; I was expecting to see you. Mother Ericson telephoned Olaf last
night that you were here."

Nils squinted and gave a long whistle. "Telephoned? That must have
been while Eric and I were out walking. Isn't she enterprising? Lift
this screen, won't you?"

Clara lifted the screen, and Nils swung his leg across the
window-sill. As he stepped into the room she said: "You didn't think
you were going to get ahead of your mother, did you?"

He threw his hat on the piano. "Oh, I do sometimes. You see, I'm
ahead of her now. I'm supposed to be in Anders' wheat-field. But, as
we were leaving, Mother ran her car into a soft place beside the
road and sank up to the hubs. While they were going for horses to
pull her out, I cut away behind the stacks and escaped." Nils
chuckled. Clara's dull eyes lit up as she looked at him admiringly.

"You've got them guessing already. I don't know what your mother
said to Olaf over the telephone, but he came back looking as if he'd
seen a ghost, and he didn't go to bed until a dreadful hour--ten
o'clock, I should think. He sat out on the porch in the dark like