lab for the new house. You haven't seen a bit would do?"

"No," said Sivert.

And they fell to work again.

A couple of days later both agreed they had enough stone now for the
walls. It was Friday evening; they sat taking a breathing-space, and
talking together the while.

"H'm--what d'you say?" said the father. "Should we think it over,
maybe, about Breidablik?"

"How d'you mean?" asked the son. "What to do with it?"

"Why, I don't know. There's the school there, and it's midway down
this tract now."

"And what then?" asked the son. "I don't know what we'd do with it,
though; it's not worth much as it is."

"That's what you've been thinking of?"

"No, not that way.... Unless Eleseus he'd like to have the place to
work on."

"Eleseus? Well, no, I don't know--"

Long pause, the two men thinking hard. The father begins gathering
tools together, packing up to go home.

"Ay, unless ..." said Sivert. "You might ask him what he says."

The father made an end of the matter thus: "Well, there's another day,
and we haven't found that door-slab yet, either."

Next day was Saturday, and they had to be off early to get across the
hills with the child. Jensine, the servant-girl, was to go with them;
that was one godmother, the rest they would have to find from among
Inger's folk on the other side.

Inger looked nice; she had made herself a dainty cotton dress, with
white at the neck and wrists. The child was all in white, with a new
blue silk ribbon drawn through the lower edge of its dress; but then
she was a wonder of a child, to be sure, that could smile and chatter
already, and lay and listened when the clock struck on the wall. Her
father had chosen her name. It was his right; he was determined to
have his say--only trust to him! He had hesitated between Jacobine and
Rebecca, as being both sort of related to Isak; and at last he went to
Inger and asked timidly: "What d'you think, now, of Rebecca?"

"Why, yes," said Inger.

And when Isak heard that, he grew suddenly independent and master in
his own house. "If she's to have a name at all," he said sharply, "it
shall be Rebecca! I'll see to that."

And of course he was going with the party to church, partly to carry,
and partly for propriety's sake. It would never do to let Rebecca go
to be christened without a decent following! Isak trimmed his beard
and put on a red shirt, as in his younger days; it was in the worst of
the hot weather, but he had a nice