en! Oh, their intolerable good sense! So easy it is
to talk sweetly and properly when you have no great trouble and all
your little troubles are well arranged! Women cannot comfort women.
No, they can not! They don't want to, if they could. Like women, I do
not! Trust them, I do not! I wish that God had made me a man! I will
go to my dear old grandad!--He will do something--so sorry I am that I
let Thora see I loved her brother--when I go there again, I shall
consider his name as the bringer-on of yawns and boredom!"

An angry woman carries her heart in her mouth; but Sunna had been
trained by a wise old man, and no one knew better than Sunna Vedder
did, when to speak and when to be silent. She went first to her room
in order to repair those disturbances to her appearance which had been
induced by her inward heat and by her hurried walk home so near the
noontide; and half an hour later she came down to dinner fresh and
cool as a rose washed in the dew of the morning. Her frock of muslin
was white as snow, there was a bow of blue ribbon at her throat, her
whole appearance was delightfully satisfying. She opened her
grandfather's parlour and found him sitting at a table covered with
papers and little piles of gold and silver coin.

"Suppose I was a thief, Grandfather?" she said.

"Well then, what would thou take first?"

"I would take a kiss!" and she laid her face against his face, and
gave him one.

"Now, thou could take all there is. What dost thou want?"

"I want thee! Dinner is ready."

"I will come. In ten minutes, I will come----" and in less than ten
minutes he was at the dinner table, and apparently a quite different
man from the one Sunna had invited there. He had changed his coat, his
face was happy and careless, and he had quite forgotten the papers and
the little piles of silver and gold.

Sunna had said some things to Thora she was sorry for saying; she did
not intend to repeat this fault with her grandfather. Even the subject
of Boris could lie still until a convenient hour. She appeared,
indeed, to have thrown off her anger and her disappointment with the
unlucky clothing she had worn in her visit to Thora. She had even
assured herself of this change, for when it fell to her feet she
lifted it reluctantly between her finger and thumb and threw it aside,
remarking as she did so, "I will have them all washed over again! Soda
and soap may make them more agreeable and more fortunate."

And perhaps i