out one solitary bough from the
rest and follow it from its first ramification through the branches of
its branches to the most delicate twig,--a distended, transparent white
wing, or a monstrous fern leaf strewed all over with white down. Then I
was compelled once more to cease following the forms and turn to the
colors; the unequal coating presented an infinite variety.

I turned my back on my traveling companion, the fjord, and wound my way
up to the gard. Where the park ended, the garden began, and the road
followed this in a gradual ascent. Once there had been a wood here also,
and the road had passed through it; but of the wood there was left but a
few yards, on either side, thus forming the avenue. Large, old trees
were about being replaced by young ones, whose growth was so dense that
in some places I could not see the gard I was driving toward. But the
snow-romance followed, decking the sinking giants with white flags,
powdering the young and fresh ones, and playing Christmas masquerade
with the deformed ones.

CHAPTER II.

The impressions of nature play their part in our anticipations of what
we are about to meet. What was there so white and refined in the
experience that awaited me here?

She was not clad in white, to be sure, the last time I saw her, the
bright attractive being whom I was now to meet again. On her wedding
journey, and in Dresden, some nine years previous to this time, we had
last been together. True, she was dressed in gala attire every day--a
whim of the young bridegroom, in his blissful intoxication; but most
frequently she wore blue, not once did she appear in white; nor would it
have been becoming to her.

I remember them especially as they sang at the piano, he sitting,
because he was playing the accompaniment, she standing and usually with
her hand on his shoulder; but what they sang was indeed white, at least
it was always of the character of a more or less jubilant anthem. She
was the daughter of a sectarian priest, and they had just come from the
parsonage and from the wedding feast. Since then I had heard of them
from time to time at the parsonage, and from that source I had received
repeatedly renewed urgent entreaties to visit them the next time I was
in their vicinity. I was now on my way to them.

I had heard the dwelling-house spoken of as one of the largest frame
buildings in Norway. It was gray and immensely long. No Atlung had ever
been satisfied with what h