The cemetery just outside the Stadsport at Bergen, which had called forth the eager admiration of Blanche Morgan in the previous summer, looked perhaps even lovelier now that winter had come with its soft, white shroud. The trees, instead of their green leaves, stretched out rime-laden branches against the clear, frosty sky; the crosses on the graves were fringed with icicles, which, touched here and there by the lovely rays of the setting sun, shone ruby-red, or in the shade gleamed clear as diamonds against the background of crisp white snow. Away in the distance Ulriken reared his grand old head majestically, a dark streak of precipitous rock showing out now and then through the veil which hid his summer face; and to the right, in the valley, the pretty Lungegaarsvand was one great sheet of ice, over which skaters glided merrily.

The body of Sigurd Falck rested beside that of his wife in the midst of all this loveliness, and one winter afternoon Sigrid and little Swanhild came to bring to the grave their wreaths and crosses, for it was their father’s birthday. They had walked from their uncle’s house laden with all the flowers they had been able to collect, and now stood at the gate of the cemetery, which opened stiffly, owing to the frost. Sigrid looked older and even sadder than she had done in the first shock of her father’s death, but little Swanhild had just the same fair rosy face as before, and there was a veiled excitement and eagerness in her manner as she pushed at the cemetery gate; she was able to take a sort of pleasure in bringing these birthday gifts, and even had in her heart a keen satisfaction in the certainty that “their grave” would look prettier than any of the others.

“No one else has remembered his birthday,” she said, as they entered the silent graveyard. “See, the snow is quite untrodden. Sigrid when are they going to put father’s name on the stone?” and she pointed to the slanting marble slab which leaned against the small cross. “There is only mother’s name still. Wont they put a bigger slab instead where there will be room for both?”

“Not now,” said Sigrid, her voice trembling.

“But why not, Sigrid? Every one else has names put. It seems as if we had forgotten him.”

“Oh, no, no,” said Sigrid, with a sob. “It isn’t that, darling; it is that we remember so well, and know what he would have wished about it.”

“I don’t understand,” said the child wistfully.

“It is in this way,” said Sigrid, taking her hand tenderly. “I can not have money spent on the tombstone, because he would not have liked it. Oh, Swanhild!—you must know it some day, you shall hear it now—it was not only his own money that was lost, it was the money of other people. And till it is paid back how can I alter this?”

Swanhild’s eyes grew large and bright.

“It was that, then, that made him die,” she faltered. “He would be so sorry for the other people. Oh, Sigrid, I will be so good: I don’t think I shall ever be naughty again. Why didn’t you tell me before, and then I shouldn’t have been cross because you wouldn’t buy me things?”

“I wanted to shield you and keep you from knowing,” said Sigrid. “But after all, it is better that you should hear it from me than from some outsider.”

“You will treat me like a baby, Sigrid, and I’m ten years old after all—quite old enough to be told things.... And oh, you’ll let me help to earn money and pay back the people, wont you?”

“That is what Frithiof is trying to do,” said Sigrid, “but it is so difficult and so slow. And I can’t think of anything we can do to help.”

“Poor dear old Frithiof,” said Swanhild. And she gazed over the frozen lake to the snow mountains which bounded the view, as if she would like to see right through them into the big London shop where, behind a counter, there stood a fair-haired Norseman toiling bravely to pay off those debts of which she had just heard. “Why, on father’s last two birthdays Frithiof was away in Germany, but then we were looking forward so to having him home again. There’s nothing to look forward to now.”

Sigrid could not reply, for she felt choked. She stood sadly watching the child as she bent down, partly to hide her tears, partly to replace a flower which had slipped out of one of the wreaths. It was just that sense of having nothing to look forward to which had weighed so heavily on Sigrid herself all these months; she had passed very bravely through all the troubles as long as there had been anything to do; but now that all the arrangements were made, the villa in Kalvedalen sold, the furniture disposed of, the new home in her uncle’s house grown familiar, her courage almost failed her, and each day she realized more bitterly how desolate and forlorn was their position. The first sympathetic kindness of her aunt and cousins had, moreover, had time to fade a little, and she became growingly conscious that their adoption into the GrÖnvold family was an inconvenience. The house was comfortable but not too large, and the two sisters occupied the only spare room, so that it was no longer possible to have visitors. The income was fairly good, but times were hard, and even before their arrival Fru GrÖnvold had begun to practice a few little economies, which increased during the winter, and became more apparent to all the family. This was depressing enough: and then, as Swanhild had said, there was nothing to which she could look forward, for Frithiof’s prospects seemed to her altogether blighted, and she foresaw that all he was likely to earn for some time to come would only suffice to keep himself, and could by no possibility support three people. Very sadly she left the cemetery, pausing again to struggle with the stiff gate, while Swanhild held the empty flower-baskets.

“Can’t you do it?” exclaimed the child. “What a tiresome gate it is! worse to fasten than to unfasten. But see! here come the Lundgrens. They will help.”

Sigrid glanced round, blushing vividly as she met the eager eyes of Torvald Lundgren, one of Frithiof’s school friends. The greetings were frank and friendly on both sides, and Madale, a tall, pretty girl of sixteen, with her hair braided into one long, thick plait, took little Swanhild’s arm and walked on with her.

“Let us leave those two to settle the gate between them,” she said, smiling. “It is far too cold to wait for them.”

Now Torvald Lundgren was a year or two older than Frithiof, and having long been in a position of authority he was unusually old for his age. As a friend Sigrid liked him, but of late she had half-feared that he wished to be more than a friend, and consequently she was not well pleased to see that, by the time the gate was actually shut, Madale and Swanhild were far in advance of them.

“Have you heard from Frithiof yet?” she asked, walking on briskly.

“No,” said Torvald. “Pray scold him well for me when you next write. How does he seem? In better spirits again?”

“I don’t know,” said Sigrid; “even to me he writes very seldom. It is wretched having him so far away and not knowing what is happening to him.”

“I wish there was anything I could do for him,” said Torvald; “but there seems no chance of any opening out here for him.”

“That is what my uncle says. Yet it was no fault of Frithiof’s: it seems hard that he should have to suffer. I think the world is very cruel. You and Madale were almost the only friends who stood by us; you were almost the only ones who scattered fir branches in the road on the morning of my father’s funeral.”

“You noticed that?” he said, coloring.

“Yes; when I saw how little had been strewn, I felt hurt and sore to think that the others had shown so little respect for him, and grateful to you and Madale.”

“Sigrid,” he said quietly, “why will you not let me be something more to you than a friend? All that I have is yours. You are not happy in Herr GrÖnvold’s house. Let me take care of you. Come and make my house happy, and bring Swanhild with you to be my little sister.”

“Oh, Torvald!” she cried, “I wish you had not asked me that. You are so good and kind, but—but—”

“Do not answer me just yet, then; take time to think it over,” he pleaded; “indeed I would do my best to make you very happy.”

“I know you would,” she replied, her eyes filling with tears. “But yet it could never be. I could never love you as a wife should love her husband, and I am much too fond of you, Torvald, to let you be married just for your comfortable house.”

“Your aunt led me to expect that, perhaps, in time, after your first grief had passed—”

“Then it was very wrong of her,” said Sigrid hotly. “You have always been my friend—a sort of second brother to me—and oh, do let it be so still. Don’t leave off being my friend because of this, for indeed I can not help it.”

“My only wish is to help you,” he said sadly; “it shall be as you would have it.”

And then they walked on together in an uncomfortable silence until they overtook the others at Herr GrÖnvold’s gate, where Torvald grasped her hand for a moment, then, looking at his watch, hurried Madale away, saying that he should be late for some appointment.

Fru GrÖnvold had unluckily been looking out of the window and had seen the little group outside. She opened the front door as the two girls climbed the steps.

“Why did not the Lundgrens come in?” she asked, a look of annoyance passing over her thin, worn face.

“I didn’t ask them,” said Sigrid, blushing.

“And I think Torvald had some engagement,” said Swanhild, unconsciously coming to the rescue.

“You have been out a long time, Swanhild; now run away to your practicing,” said Fru GrÖnvold, in the tone which the child detested. “Come in here, Sigrid, I want a word with you.”

Fru GrÖnvold had the best of hearts, but her manner was unfortunate; from sheer anxiety to do well by people she often repulsed them. To Sigrid, accustomed from her earliest girlhood to come and go as she pleased and to manage her father’s house, this manner was almost intolerable. She resented interference most strongly, and was far too young and inexperienced to see, beneath her aunt’s dictatorial tone, the real kindness that existed. Her blue eyes looked defiant as she marched into the sitting-room, and drawing off her gloves began to warm her hands by the stove.

“Why did you not ask Torvald Lundgren to come in?” asked Fru GrÖnvold, taking up her knitting.

“Because I didn’t want to ask him, auntie.”

“But you ought to think what other people want, not always of yourself.”

“I did,” said Sigrid quickly. “I knew he didn’t want to come in.”

“What nonsense you talk, child!” said Fru GrÖnvold, knitting with more vigor than before, as if she vented her impatience upon the sock she was making. “You must know quite well that Torvald admires you very much; it is mere affectation to pretend not to see what is patent to all the world.”

“I do not pretend,” said Sigrid angrily, “but you—you have encouraged him to hope, and it is unfair and unkind of you. He told me you had spoken to him.”

“What! he has proposed to you?” said Fru GrÖnvold, dropping her work. “Did he speak to you to-day, dear?”

“Yes,” said Sigrid, blushing crimson.

“And you said you would let him have his answer later on. I see, dear, I see. Of course you could not ask him in.”

“I said nothing of the sort,” said Sigrid vehemently. “I told him that I could never think of marrying him, and we shall still be the good friends we have always been.”

“My dear child,” cried Fru GrÖnvold, with genuine distress in her tone, “how could you be so foolish, so blind to all your own interests? He is a most excellent fellow, good and steady and rich—all that heart could wish.”

“There I don’t agree with you,” said Sigrid perversely. “I should wish my husband to be very different. He is just like Torvald in Ibsen’s ‘Et Dukkehjem,’ we always told him so.”

“Pray don’t quote that hateful play to me,” said Fru GrÖnvold. “Every one knows that Ibsen’s foolish ideas about women being equal to men and sharing their confidence could only bring misery and mischief. Torvald Lundgren is a good, upright, honorable man, and your refusing him is most foolish.”

“He is very good, I quite admit,” said Sigrid. “He is my friend, and has been always, and will be always. But if he were the only man on earth nothing would induce me to marry him. It would only mean wretchedness for us both.”

“Well, pray don’t put your foolish notions about equality and ideal love into Karen’s head,” said Fru GrÖnvold sharply. “Since you are so stupid and unpractical it will be well that Karen should accept the first good offer she receives.”

“We are not likely to discuss the matter,” said Sigrid, and rising to her feet she hurriedly left the room.

Upstairs she ran, choking with angry tears, her aunt’s last words haunting her persistently and inflicting deeper wounds the more she dwelt upon them.

“She wants me to marry him so that she may be rid of the expense of keeping us,” thought the poor girl. “She doesn’t really care for us a bit, for all the time she is grudging the money we cost her. But I wont be such a bad friend to poor Torvald as to marry him because I am miserable here. I would rather starve than do that. Oh! how I hate her maxims about taking what you can get! Why should love and equality and a true union lead to misery and mischief? It is the injustice of lowering woman into a mere pleasant housekeeper that brings half the pain of the world, it seems to me.”

But by the time Sigrid had lived through the long evening, bearing, as best she might, the consciousness of her aunt’s disappointment and vexation with her, another thought had begun to stir in her heart. And when that night she went to her room her tears were no longer the tears of anger, but of a miserable loneliness and desolation.

She looked at little Swanhild lying fast asleep, and wondered how the refusal would affect her life.

“After all,” she thought to herself, “Swanhild would have been happier had I accepted him. She would have had a much nicer home, and Torvald would never have let her feel that she was a burden. He would have been very kind to us both, and I suppose I might have made him happy—as happy as he would ever have expected to be. And I might have been able to help Frithiof, for we should have been rich. Perhaps I am losing this chance of what would be best for every one else just for a fancy. Oh, what am I to do? After all, he would have been very kind, and here they are not really kind. He would have taken such care of me, and it would surely be very nice to be taken care of again.”

And then she began to think of her aunt’s words, and to wonder whether there might not be some truth in them, so that by the time the next day had dawned she had worried herself into a state of confusion, and had Torvald Lundgren approached her again might really have accepted him from some puzzle-headed notion of the duty of being practical and always considering others before yourself. Fortunately Torvald did not appear, and later in the morning she took her perplexities to dear old Fru Askevold, the pastor’s wife, who having worked early and late for her ten children, now toiled for as many grandchildren, and into the bargain was ready to be the friend of any girl who chose to seek her out. In spite of her sixty years she had a bright, fresh-colored face, with a look of youth about it which contrasted curiously with her snowy hair. She was little, and plump and had a brisk, cheerful way of moving about which somehow recalled to one—

“Now that is charming of you to come and see me just at the very right minute, Sigrid,” said Fru Askevold, kissing the girl, whose face, owing to trouble and sleeplessness, looked more worn than her own. “I’ve just been cutting out Ingeborg’s new frock, and am wanting to sit down and rest a little. What do you think of the color! Pretty, isn’t it?”

“Charming,” said Sigrid. “Let me do the tacking for you.”

“No, no; you look tired, my child; sit down here by the stove, and I will tack it together as we chat. What makes those dark patches beneath your eyes.”

“Oh, it is nothing. I could not sleep last night, that is all.”

“Because you were worrying over something. That does not pay, child; give it up. It’s a bad habit.”

“I don’t think I can help it,” said Sigrid. “We all of us have a natural tendency that way. Don’t you remember how Frithiof never could sleep before an examination?”

“And you perhaps were worrying your brain about him? Was that it?”

“Partly,” said Sigrid, looking down and speaking nervously. “You see it was in this way—I had a chance of becoming rich and well to do, of stepping into a position which would have made me able to help the others, and because it did not come up to my own notion of happiness I threw away the chance.”

And so little by little and mentioning no name, she put before the motherly old lady all the facts of the case.

“Child,” said Fru Askevold, “I have only one piece of advice to give you—be true to your own ideal.”

“But then one’s own ideal may be unattainable in this world.”

“Perhaps, and if so it can’t be helped. But if you mean your marriage to be a happy one, then be true. Half the unhappy marriages come from people stooping to take just what they can get. If you accepted this man’s offer you might be wronging some girl who is really capable of loving him properly.”

“Then you mean that some of us have higher ideals than others?”

“Why, yes, to be sure; it is the same in this as in every thing else, and what you have to do is just to shut your ears to all the well-meaning but false maxims of the world, and listen to the voice in your own heart. Depend upon it, you will be able to do far more for Frithiof and Swanhild if you are true to yourself than you would be able to do as a rich woman and an unhappy wife.”

Sigrid was silent for some moments.

“Thank you,” she said, at length. “I see things much more clearly now; last night I could only see things through Aunt GrÖnvold’s spectacles, and I think they must be very short-sighted ones.”

Fru Askevold laughed merrily.

“That is quite true,” she said. “The marriages brought about by scheming relatives may look promising enough at first, but in the long run they always bring trouble and misery. The true marriages are made in heaven, Sigrid, though folks are slow to believe that.”

Sigrid went away comforted, yet nevertheless life was not very pleasant to her just then, for although she had the satisfaction of seeing Torvald walking the streets of Bergen without any signs of great dejection in his face, she had all day long to endure the consciousness of her aunt’s vexation, and to feel in every little economy that this need not have been practiced had she decided as Fru GrÖnvold wished. It was on the whole a very dreary Christmas, yet the sadness was brightened by one little act of kindness and courtesy which to the end of her life she never forgot. For after all it is that which is rare that makes a deep impression on us. The word of praise spoken at the beginning of our career lingers forever in our hearts with something of the glow of encouragement and hopefulness which it first kindled there; while the applause of later years glides off us like water off a duck’s back. The little bit of kindness shown in days of trouble is remembered when greater kindness during days of prosperity has been forgotten.

It was Christmas-eve. Sigrid sat in her cold bedroom, wrapped round in an eider-down quilt. She was reading over again the letter she had last received from Frithiof, just one of those short unsatisfying letters which of late he had sent her. From Germany he had written amusingly enough, but these London letters often left her more unhappy than they found her, not so much from anything they said as from what they left unsaid. Since last Christmas all had been taken away from her, and now it seemed to her that even Frithiof’s love was growing cold, and her tears fell fast on the thin little sheet of paper where she had tried so hard to read love and hope between the lines, and had tried in vain.

A knock at the door made her dry her eyes hastily, and she was relieved to find that it was not her Cousin Karen who entered, but Swanhild, with a sunny face and blue eyes dancing with excitement.

“Look, Sigrid,” she cried, “here is a parcel which looks exactly like a present. Do make haste and open it.”

They cut the string and folded back the paper, Sigrid giving a little cry of surprise as she saw before her the water-color sketch of Bergen, which had been her father’s last present to her on the day before his death. Unable to pay for it, she had asked the proprietor of the shop to take it back again, and had been relieved by his ready consent. Glancing quickly at the accompanying note, she saw that it bore his signature. It ran as follows:

“Madame: Will you do me the honor of accepting the water-color sketch of Bergen chosen by the late Herr Falck in October. At your wish I took back the picture then and regarded the purchase as though it had never been made. I now ask you to receive it as a Christmas-gift and a slight token of my respect for the memory of your father,” etc., etc.

“Oh!” cried Sigrid, “isn’t that good of him! And how nice of him to wait for Christmas instead of sending it straight back. Now I shall have something to send to Frithiof. It will get to him in time for the new year.”

Swanhild clapped her hands.

“What a splendid idea! I had not thought of that. And we shall have it up here just for Christmas-day. How pretty it is! People are very kind, I think!”

And Sigrid felt the little clinging arm round her waist, and as they looked at the picture together she smoothed back the child’s golden hair tenderly.

“Yes,” she said, smiling, “after all, people are very kind.”