all laughed, though Thelma's eyes had a way of looking pensive even
when she smiled.

"You would not blame poor Svensen because he is alone, father?" she
said. "Is he not to be pitied? Surely it is a cruel fate to have none to
love in all the wide world. Nothing can be more cruel!"

Gueldmar surveyed her humorously. "Hear her!" he said. "She talks as if
she knew all about such things; and if ever a child was ignorant of
sorrow, surely it is my Thelma! Every flower and bird in the place loves
her. Yes; I have thought sometimes the very sea loves her. It must; she
is so much upon it. And as for her old father"--he laughed a little,
though a suspicious moisture softened his keen eyes--"why, he doesn't
love her at all. Ask her! She knows it."

Thelma rose quickly and kissed him. How deliciously those sweet lips
pouted, thought Errington, and what an unreasonable and extraordinary
grudge he seemed to bear towards the venerable _bonde_ for accepting
that kiss with so little apparent emotion!

"Hush, father!" she said. "These friends can see too plainly how much
you spoil me. Tell me,"--and she turned with a sudden pretty
imperiousness to Lorimer, who started at her voice as a racehorse starts
at its rider's touch,--"what person in Bosekop spoke of us?"

Lorimer was rather at a loss, inasmuch as no one in the small town had
actually spoken of them, and Mr. Dyceworthy's remarks concerning those
who were "ejected with good reason from respectable society," might not,
after all, have applied to the Gueldmar family. Indeed, it now seemed an
absurd and improbable supposition. Therefore he replied cautiously--

"The Reverend Mr. Dyceworthy, I think, has some knowledge of you. Is he
not a friend of yours?"

These simple words had a most unexpected effect. Olaf Gueldmar sprang up
from his seat flaming with wrath. It was in vain that his daughter laid
a restraining hand upon his arm. The name of the Lutheran divine had
sufficed to put him in a towering passion, and he turned furiously upon
the astonished Errington.

"Had I known you came from the devil, sir, you should have returned to
him speedily, with hot words to hasten your departure! I would have
split that glass to atoms before I would have drained it after you! The
friends of a false heart are no friends for me,--the followers of a
pretended sanctity find no welcome under my roof! Why not have told me
at once that you came as spies, hounded on by the liar Dyceworthy? Wh