"Read it, Salve." He looked at the large clumsy writing and spelt out-- "Forgive me that I cannot be your wife, for my heart is given to another .-- Elizabeth Raklev." He sat down on the bench and read it over again, while she bent over him, looking now at the writing, and now at his face.
"What do you find there, Salve ?" she asked.

"Why could I not be Beck's wife ?" "'Because my heart is given to another,'" he answered, slowly, and looking up at her with moistened eyes.
"Not yours; it is I who loved another.

And who was that other ?" "God bless you--it was me!" he said, and drew her down upon his knee into a long, long embrace.
* * * * * The boys had become tired of waiting down at the boat, the "bagman" especially, since it was clearly past dinner-time; the bell had rung over at the dry-dock, and the town boys had already passed from school.
His white head and heated face appeared now at the kitchen-door, and with scarcely a glance over to where his father and mother were sitting on the bench together looking very happy, he turned at once to the hearth and became aware of the sad fact that there was positively no porridge to be seen; there was not even a fire.

Coming bodily into the room, he asked, with tears in his voice-- "Have you had dinner?
Are Gjert and I not to have any, then ?" His mother sprang up.

"And aunt!" she exclaimed.