e's all tired out," said Katrina,
thinking it best to explain the matter in that way. At the same
time she bent down over her husband and tried to persuade him to
rise.

But Jan lay still.

"Does he understand what I'm saying?" asked the senator.

"Yes indeed," they all assured him.

"Perhaps he's not expecting any glad tidings, seeing it's Senator
Carl Carlson who is paying him a call." This from the seine-maker.

The senator turned his head and stared at the seine-maker. "Ol'
Bengtsa of Lusterby has not always been so afraid of meeting Carl
Carlson of Storvik," he observed in a mild voice. Turning toward
the table again, he took up a letter.

Every one was dumbfounded. The senator had actually spoken in a
friendly tone. He could almost be said to have smiled.

"The fact is," he began, "a couple of days ago I received a
communication from a person who calls herself Glory Goldie
Sunnycastle, daughter of Jan of Ruffluck, in which she says she
left home some months ago to try to earn two-hundred rix-dollars,
which sum her parents have to pay to Lars Gunnarson of Falla on the
first day of October in order to obtain full rights of ownership to
the land on which their hut stands."

Here the senator paused a moment so that his hearers would be able
to follow him.

"And now she sends the money to me," he continued, "with the
request that I come down to the Ashdales and see that this matter
is properly settled with the new owner of Falla; so that he won't
be able to play any new trick later on."

"That girl has got some sense in her head," the senator remarked as
he folded the letter. "She turns to me from the start. If all did
as she has done there would be less cheating and injustice in this
parish."

Before the close of that remark Jan was sitting on the edge of the
bed. "But the girl? Where is she?" he asked.

"And now I'd like to know," the senator proceeded, taking no notice
of Jan's question, "whether the parents are in accord with the
daughter and authorize me to close--"

"But the girl, the girl?" Jan struck in. "Where is she?"

"Where she is?" said the senator, looking in the letter to see.
"She says it was impossible for her to earn all this money in just
two or three months, but she has found a place with a kind lady,
who advanced her the money, and now she will have to stay with the
lady until she has made it good."

"Then she's not coming home?" Jan asked.

"No, not for the present, as I und