"You do not know what you ought to answer?"

"Yes, indeed, I know that."

"Well, then?"

"May I say it?"

"Yes; of course you may say it."

"I care a great deal for that love of mine."

He stood aghast for a moment, recalling a hundred similar conversations
with similar results, then he shook his head, turned his back, and
walked away.

He picked a quarrel with the housemen, abused the girls, beat the large
dog, and almost frightened the life out of a little hen that had
strayed into the field; but to Marit he said nothing.

That evening Marit was so happy when she went up-stairs to bed, that
she opened the window, lay in the window-frame, looked out and sang.
She had found a pretty little love-song, and it was that she sang.

"Lovest thou but me,
I will e'er love thee,
All my days on earth, so fondly;
Short were summer's days,
Now the flower decays,--
Comes again with spring, so kindly.