are you doing out so late, Clara Vavrika? I went to the house,
but Johanna told me you had gone to your father's."

"Who can stay in the house on a night like this? Aren't you out
yourself?"

"Ah, but that's another matter."

Nils turned the horse into the field.

"What are you doing? Where are you taking Norman?"

"Not far, but I want to talk to you to-night; I have something to
say to you. I can't talk to you at the house, with Olaf sitting
there on the porch, weighing a thousand tons."

Clara laughed. "He won't be sitting there now. He's in bed by this
time, and asleep--weighing a thousand tons."

Nils plodded on across the stubble. "Are you really going to spend
the rest of your life like this, night after night, summer after
summer? Haven't you anything better to do on a night like this than
to wear yourself and Norman out tearing across the country to your
father's and back? Besides, your father won't live forever, you
know. His little place will be shut up or sold, and then you'll have
nobody but the Ericsons. You'll have to fasten down the hatches for
the winter then."

Clara moved her head restlessly. "Don't talk about that. I try never
to think of it. If I lost father I'd lose everything, even my hold
over the Ericsons."

"Bah! You'd lose a good deal more than that. You'd lose your race,
everything that makes you yourself. You've lost a good deal of it
now."

"Of what?"

"Of your love of life, your capacity for delight."

Clara put her hands up to her face. "I haven't, Nils Ericson, I
haven't! Say anything to me but that. I won't have it!" she declared
vehemently.

Nils led the horse up to a straw stack, and turned to Clara, looking
at her intently, as he had looked at her that Sunday afternoon at
Vavrika's. "But why do you fight for that so? What good is the power
to enjoy, if you never enjoy? Your hands are cold again; what are
you afraid of all the time? Ah, you're afraid of losing it; that's
what's the matter with you! And you will, Clara Vavrika, you will!
When I used to know you--listen; you've caught a wild bird in your
hand, haven't you, and felt its heart beat so hard that you were
afraid it would shatter its little body to pieces? Well, you used to
be just like that, a slender, eager thing with a wild delight inside
you. That is how I remembered you. And I come back and find you--a
bitter woman. This is a perfect ferret fight here; you live by
biting and being bitten. Can't you rem