r harassed creatures laughing. They must need a little
joy and laughter--ah! well he knew how they must need it.

But he knew, too, that Merle and Peer were on tenterhooks waiting to
know what the family had decided about their future. The days of their
life here had been evil and sad, but they only hoped now that they might
be able to stay on. If the help they had received up to now were taken
from them, they could neither afford to stay here nor to go elsewhere.
What then could they do? No wonder they were anxious as they sat there.

After supper he went out for a stroll with Peer, while Merle waited at
home in suspense. She understood that their fate was being settled as
she waited.

At last they returned--and to her astonishment they came in laughing.

Her brother said good-night, and kissed her on the forehead, and patted
her arm and was kindness itself. She took him up to his room, and would
have liked to sit there a while and talk to him; but she knew Peer had
waited till they were alone to tell her the news that concerned them so
nearly. "Good-night, then, Carsten," she said to her brother, and went
downstairs.

And then at last she and Peer were sitting alone together, at her
work-table by the window.

"Well?" said Merle.

"The thing is this, Merle. If we have courage to live at all, we must
look facts in the face as they are."

"Yes, dear, but tell me . . ."

"And the facts are that with my health as it now is I cannot possibly
get any employment. It is certain that I cannot. And as that is the
case, we may as well be here as anywhere else."

"But can we stay on here, Peer?"

"If you can bear to stay with a miserable bungler like me--that, of
course, is a question."

"Answer me--can we stay here?"

"Yes. But it may be years, Merle, before I'm fit to work again--we've
got to reckon with that. And to live on charity year after year is what
I cannot and will not endure."

"But what are we to do, then, Peer? There seems to be no possible way
for me to earn any money."

"I can try, at any rate," he answered, looking out of the window.

"You? Oh no, Peer. Even if you could get work as a draughtsman, you know
quite well that your eyes would never stand . . ."

"I can do blacksmith's work," he said.

There was a pause. Merle glanced at him involuntarily, as if she could
hardly believe her ears. Could he be in earnest? Was the engineer of the
Nile Barrage to sink into a country blacksmith?

She