to him, I began to wonder whether Karoline
had not some use for them, since she usually gave such things to
beggars. So I took the boots in my hand, and went downstairs to ask
her, but on the way I got a little worked up because I did not quite
dare to give them to the beggar myself. And the further I went down
the steps, the more wrathful I got, until I stood over her. And then I
was so angry that I had to bluster at her as if she had done me a
grievous wrong. But she could not understand a word of what I said,
and looked at me with such amazement, that I could not keep from
bursting into laughter."

From his early years, Bjoernson kept in touch with the modern
intellectual movement by mingling with the people of other lands than
his own. Besides his visits to Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, he made
many lengthy sojourns in the chief continental centres of civilization,
in Munich, Rome, and Paris. The longest of his foreign journeys was
that which brought him to the United States in the winter of 1880-81,
for the purpose of addressing his fellow countrymen in the Northwest.
His home for the last thirty years and more has been his estate of
Aulestad in the Gausdal, a region of Southern Norway. Here he has been
a model farmer, and here, surrounded by his family,--wife, children,
and grandchildren,--his patriarchal presence has given dignity to the
household, and united its members in a common bond of love. Hither
have come streams of guests, friends old and new, to enjoy his generous
hospitality. There has been provision for all, both bed and board, and
the heartiest of welcomes from the host. And the stranger from abroad
has been greeted, as like as not, by the sight of his own country's
flag streaming from a staff before the house, and foreshadowing the
personal greeting that awaited him upon the threshold.

Bjoernson died in Paris (where he had been spending the winter, as was
his custom for many years past), April 26, 1910. He had been ill for
several months, and only an extraordinarily robust constitution enabled
him to make a partial recovery from the crisis of the preceding
February, when his death had been hourly expected. The news of his
death occasioned demonstrations of grief not only in his own country,
but also throughout the civilized world. Every honor that a nation can
bestow upon its illustrious dead was decreed him by King and Storthing;
a warship was despatched to bear his remains to Christi