dress of that sort, though Jan, at least, would have liked nothing
better.

Fancy! When the merchant had vainly pressed and begged the parents
for a long while he grew terribly excited because he could not have
his way. He said he had set his heart on their daughter having the
dress, that he had not seen another girl in the whole parish who
would set it off as well as she could. Whereupon he had measured
and cut off as much of the cloth as was needed for a frock, and
presented it to Glory Goldie. He did not want any payment, all he
asked was to see the young girl dressed in the red frock the next
time he came to Ruffluck.

Afterward the frock was made up by the best seamstress in the
parish, the one who sewed for the young ladies at Lövdala Manor,
and when Glory Goldie tried it on the effect was so perfect that
one would have thought the two had blossomed together on one of the
lovely wild briar bushes out in the forest.

The Sunday Glory Goldie showed herself at church in her new dress,
nothing could have kept Jan and Katrina at home, so curious were
they to hear what folks would say.

And it turned out, as has been said, that everybody noticed the red
dress. When the astonished folk had looked at it once they turned
and looked again; the second time, however, they glanced not only
at the dress but at the young girl who wore it.

Some had already heard the story of the dress. Others wanted to
know how it happened that a poor cotter's lass stood there in such