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He walked slower and looked at her, smiling. “Mildrid, you mean that they have settled to give you the farm?”

She blushed, but did not answer.

“Well, then–we’ll let that alone till the time comes. When they want us to take their places, it’s for them to ask us to do it.” He said this very gently and tenderly, but she felt what it meant. Thoughtful of others, as she always was, and accustomed to consider their feelings before her own, she yielded in this too. But very soon they came to where they could see Tingvold in the valley below them. She looked down at it, and then at him, as if it could speak for itself.

The big sunny fields on the hill slope, with the wood encircling and sheltering them, the house and farm buildings a little in the shadow, but big and fine–it all looked so beautiful. The valley, with its rushing, winding river, stretched away down beyond, with farm after farm in the bottom and on its slopes on both sides–but none, not one to equal Tingvold–none so fertile or so pleasant to the eye, none so snugly sheltered, and yet commanding the whole valley. When she saw that Hans was struck by the sight, she reddened with joy.

“Yes,” he said, in answer to her unspoken question–“yes, it is true; Tingvold is a fine place; it would be hard to find its equal.”

He smiled and bent down to her. “But I care more for you, Mildrid, than for Tingvold; and perhaps–you care more for me than for Tingvold?”

When he took it this way she could say no more. He looked so happy too; he sat down, and she beside him.

“Now I’m going to sing something for you,” he whispered.

She felt glad. “I’ve never heard you sing,” she said.

“No, I know you have not; and though people talk about my singing, you must not think it’s anything very great. There’s only this about it, that it comes upon me sometimes, and then I must sing.”

He sat thinking for a good while, and then he sang her the song that he had made for their own wedding to the tune of her race’s Bridal March. Quite softly he sang it, but with such exultation as she had never heard in any voice before. She looked down on her home, the house she was to drive away from on that day; followed the road with her eyes down to the bridge across the river, and along on the other side right up to the church, which lay on a height, among birch-trees, with a group of houses near it. It was not a very clear day, but the subdued light over the landscape was in sympathy with the subdued picture in her mind. How many hundred times had she not driven that road in fancy, only she never knew with whom! The words and the tune entranced her; the peculiar warm, soft voice seemed to touch the very depths of her being; her eyes were full, but she was not crying; nor was she laughing. She was sitting with her hand on his, now looking at him, now over the valley, when she saw smoke beginning to rise from the chimney of her home; the fire was being lit for making the dinner. This was an omen; she turned to Hans and pointed. He had finished his song now, and they sat still and looked.

Very soon they were on their way down through the birch wood, and Hans was having trouble with the dog, to make him keep quiet. Mildrid’s heart began to throb. Hans arranged with her that he would stay behind, but near the house; it was better that she should go in first alone. He carried her over one or two marshy places, and he felt that her hands were cold. “Don’t think of what you’re to say,” he whispered; “just wait and see how things come.” She gave no sound in answer, nor did she look at him.