," he
replied.

"Then you will accompany her, I suppose?" said one of the little
misses.

Jan would rather the young lady had not questioned him regarding
that matter. Nor did he give her any reply at first, but she was
persistent.

"Possibly you don't know as yet how it will be?" she said.

Oh, yes, he knew all about it, only he was not quite sure how
people would regard his decision. Perhaps they might think it was
not the correct thing for an emperor to do. "I shall remain at
home," he told her. "It would never do for me to leave Katrina."

"So Katrina is not going to Portugallia?"

"No," he answered. "You couldn't get Katrina away from the hut, and
I shall stay right here with her. You see when one has promised to
love and cherish till death--"

"Yes, I understand that one can't break that vow." This was said by
the young girl who seemed most eager to know about everything. "Do
you hear that, all of you?" she added. "Jan won't leave his wife
though all the glories of Portugallia are tempting him."

And think of it! The girls were very glad of this. They patted him
on the back and told him he did right. That was a favourable sign,
they said, for it showed that all was not over yet with good old
Jan Anderson of Ruffluck Croft.

He could not make out just what they meant by that; but probably
they were happy to think the parish was not going to lose him.

They bade him good-bye now, saying they were going over to Doveness
to a garden party.

They had barely gone when Katrina walked in. She must have been
standing outside the door listening. But how long she had stood
there or how much she had heard, Jan did not know. Anyway, she
looked more amiable and serene than she had appeared in a long
while.

"You're an old simpleton," she told him. "I wonder what other women
would say if they had a husband like you? But still it's a comfort
to know that you don't want to go away from me."

BJOERN HINDRICKSON'S FUNERAL

Jan Anderson of Ruffluck was not invited to the funeral of Bjoern
Hindrickson of Loby.

But he understood, of course, that the family of the departed had
not been quite certain that he would care to claim kinship with
them now that he had risen to such glory and honour; possibly they
feared it might upset their arrangements if so exalted a personage
as Johannes of Portugallia were to attend the funeral.

The immediate relatives of the late Bjoern Hindrickson naturally
wished to ride in th