.

Lovisa was always foremost among the girls of the village who watched me leave the Fjord,--and however long or short a time I might be absent, she was certain to be on the shore when my ship came sailing home again.

Many a joke I have cracked with her and her companions--and she was a bonnie enough creature to look at then, I tell you,--though now she is like a battered figure-head on a wreck.

Her marriage, spoiled her temper,--her husband was as dark and sour a man as could be met with in all Norway, and when he and his fishing-boat sank in a squall off the Lofoden Islands, I doubt if she shed many tears for his loss.

Her only daughter's husband went down in the same storm,--and he but three months wedded,--and the girl,--Britta's mother,--pined and pined, and even when her child was born took no sort of comfort in it.