have suspected him of possessing. They used to twit him about his
inclination to stoutness, and he used to joke about it too, and say he
had too good a time of it.

Among the Becks' most frequent visitors out there was postmaster
Forstberg's family, which included, besides the parents, a hobbledehoy
son and their daughter Marie, a fair-haired girl some eighteen years of
age, of quiet manners, and with an uncommonly clever face. Nobody said
that she was pretty, but nearly every one who knew her had the
impression that she was; and there was a certain indefinable harmony and
grace, not only about her perhaps rather small figure, but about
everything she did. But if she was not considered pretty, it was agreed
on all sides that she had great sense; and among her friends she was
always the one they elected to confide in, whenever they had anything on
their minds. That she never confided anything to them in return had,
curiously enough, never struck them; and for that matter, she was too
correct and proper, they imagined, to have any heart affairs herself.
She was a confidential friend of Carl Beck's sisters, and especially of
Mina, who declared that she put her before all the rest of her
acquaintance, and thought in her own heart that she was exactly the
match for her brother.

The only one of the young girls in the circle with whom Carl Beck had
had no youthful acquaintance was Marie Forstberg; and it had been some
time before he discovered that the quiet girl was worth talking to. He
used to be secretly annoyed then that the conversation when she was
present should lapse so easily into empty trifling; her mind was so
clear and true, and she had such a beautiful smile for whatever she
approved. Before her, therefore, he always displayed now the broad,
manly side of his character--which he could do with so much grace--and