"Only for a minute. I must get back home to-night, for I am to go with
a kariol to-morrow morning."

"Very well. Tell Joel, from me, that I expect to go to Moel to-morrow,
and that he must wait for me there."

"To-morrow evening?"

"No; to-morrow morning, and he must not leave Moel until he sees me.
We will return to Dal together."

"Very well, Dame Hansen."

"Won't you take a drop of _brandevin_?"

"With pleasure."

The boy approached the table, and Dame Hansen handed him a glass of
the beverage which is such a powerful protection against the evening
fogs. It is needless to say that he drained the glass, then,

"_God-aften!_" he said.

"_God-aften_, my son!"

This is the Norwegian good-night. It was simply spoken, without even
an inclination of the head, and the lad instantly departed, without
seeming to mind in the least the long walk that he had before him. The
sound of his footsteps soon died away beneath the trees that border
the swiftly flowing river.

Hulda still stood gazing at Ole's letter. Think of it! This frail
envelope must have crossed the broad ocean to reach her, the broad
ocean in which the rivers of western Norway lose themselves. She
examined the different postmarks. Though mailed on the 15th of March,
the missive had not reached Dal until the 15th of April. Why! a month
had already elapsed since the letter was written! How many things
might have happened in a month on the shores of Newfoundland! Was it
not still winter, the dangerous season of equinoxes? Are not these
fishing banks the most dangerous in the world, swept by terrible gales
from the North Pole? A perilous and arduous vocation was this business
of fishing which Ole followed! And if he followed it was it not that
she, his betrothed, whom he was to marry on his return, might reap the
benefits?

Poor Ole! What did he say in this letter? Doubtless that he loved
Hulda as faithfully and truly as Hulda loved him, that they were
united in thought, in spite of the distance that separated them, and
that he longed for the day of his return to Dal.

Yes, he said all this, Hulda was sure of it. But perhaps he might add
that the day of his return was near at hand--that the fishing cruise
which had enticed the inhabitants of Bergen so far from their native
land, was nearly at an end. Perhaps Ole would tell her that the
"Viking" had finished taking aboard her cargo, that she was about
to sail, and that the last days of April would no