resque appearance,
particularly Sigurd, who stood at a little distance from the others,
leaning on his tall staff and gazing at Thelma with an air of peculiar
pensiveness and abstraction.

She was at that moment busied in adjusting Errington's knapsack more
comfortably, her fair, laughing face turned up to his, and her bright
eyes alight with love and tender solicitude.

"I've a good mind not to go at all," he whispered in her ear. "I'll come
back and stay with you all day."

"You foolish boy!" she answered merrily. "You would miss seeing the
grand fall--all for what? To sit with me and watch me spinning, and you
would grow so very sleepy! Now, if I were a man, I would go with you."

"I'm very glad you're not a man!" said Errington, pressing the little
hand that had just buckled his shoulder-strap. "Though I wish you _were_
going with us. But I say, Thelma, darling, won't you be lonely?"

She laughed gaily. "Lonely? I? Why, Britta is with me--besides, I am
never lonely _now_." She uttered the last word softly, with a shy,
upward glance. "I have so much to think about--" She paused and drew her
hand away from her lover's close clasp. "Ah," she resumed, with a
mischievous smile, "you are a conceited boy! You want to be missed! You
wish me to say that I shall feel most miserable all the time you are
away! If I do, I shall not tell you!"

"Thelma, child?" called Olaf Gueldmar, at this juncture "keep the gates
bolted and doors barred while we are absent. Remember, thou and Britta
must pass the night alone here,--we cannot be at home till late in the
evening of to-morrow. Let no one inside the garden, and deny thyself to
all comers. Dost thou hear?"

"Yes, father," she responded meekly.

"And let Britta keep good guard that her crazy hag of a grandam come not
hither to disturb or fright thee with her croaking,--for thou hast not
even Sigurd to protect thee."

"Not even Sigurd!" said that personage, with a meditative smile. "No,
mistress; not even poor Sigurd!"

"One of us might remain behind," suggested Lorimer, with a side-look at
his friend.

"Oh no, no!" exclaimed Thelma anxiously. "It would vex me so much!
Britta and I have often been alone before. We are quite safe, are we
not, father?"

"Safe enough!" said the old man, with a laugh. "I know of no one save
Lovisa Elsland who has the courage to face thee, child! Still, pretty
witch as thou art, 'twill not harm thee to put the iron bar across the
house door