Signe was greatly surprised, and Rachel led her to a corner where they
talked freely for some time. During the day they found occasion to
continue their conversation, and that evening Signe went home with her
new-found friend.

This was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Rachel knew enough of
Henrik's little romance with Signe to make the acquaintanceship
unusually interesting; besides, there came to be a strong affinity
between the two. Rachel accompanied her friend to Dry Bench, and there
soon became "Aunt Rachel" to Signe's four beautiful children. Then she
wrote to Henrik, telling him of her wonderful "find." He replied that at
their next visit to America, they would surely give Dry Bench a call.

Henrik, Marie, and two of the older children came that fall when the
peaches were ripe and the alfalfa fields were being cut. And such
delicious peaches, and such stacks of fragrant hay they found! Amid the
beautiful setting of the harvest time, their several stories were told,
in wonder at the diverging and the meeting of the great streams of Life.
The Bogstad children practiced their book-learned English, while the
Ames children were willing teachers. The boys bathed in the irrigation
canal, rode on the loads of hay, and gorged themselves with peaches. The
girls played house under the trees. And were it part of this story, it
might be here told how that, later, Arnt Bogstad and Margaret Ames loved
and mated--but it is not.

Henrik and Marie lived happily together for twelve years, and then Marie
was called into the spirit world. Henrik was left with five children,
the youngest but a few months old. With ample means, he could obtain
plenty of household help, but money could not buy a mother for his
children. A number of years went by, bringing to Henrik new and varied