showed the
effect of the self-reliance she had learned to practice in her
childhood. It was not for nothing that she had been accustomed to solve
riddles, and that from day to day she had struggled with life's
difficulties. The whole strength of the character she had acquired was
firmly and securely implanted within her. Without further question, as
a man goes forward to meet a necessity, quiet and self-possessed, so did
she, boldly and of good courage, go on her way.

She had not gone far when she saw a farmer sitting by the wayside, with
a red cane between his legs; and on this cane he was resting his two
hands and his chin.

"God greet you," said Amrei. "Are you enjoying a rest?"

"Yes. Where are you going?"

"Up yonder to the farm. Are you going there too? If so, you may lean on
me."

"Yes, that is the way," said the old man with a grin. "Thirty years ago
I should have cared more about it, if such a pretty girl had said that
to me; I should have jumped like a colt."

"But to those who can jump like colts one doesn't say such things,"
replied Amrei, laughing.

"You are rich," said the old man. He seemed to like to talk, and smiled
as he took a pinch of snuff out of his horn snuff-box.

"How can you tell that I am rich?"

"Your teeth are worth ten thousand guilders. There's many a one would
give ten thousand guilders to have them in his mouth."

"I have no time for jesting. Now, God keep you!"

"Wait a little. I'll go with you--but you must not walk too fast." Amrei
carefully helped the old man to his feet, and he remarked:

"You are strong,"--and in his teasing way he made himself more helpless
and heavier than he actually was. As they walked along, he asked:

"To whom are you going at the farm?"

"To the farmer and his wife."

"What do you want of them?"

"That I shall tell them."

"Well, if you want anything of them, you had better turn back at once.
The mistress would give you something, but she has no authority to, and
the farmer, he's tight--he's got a board on his neck, and a stiff thumb
into the bargain."

"I don't want anything given me--I bring them something," said Amrei.

On the way they met an older man going to the field with his scythe; and
the old farmer walking with Amrei called out to him with a queer blink
in his eyes:

"Do you know if miserly Farmer Landfried is at home?"

"I think so, but I don't know," answered the man with the scythe, and he
turned away into the fiel