The time came on for Mildrid to be confirmed; she made acquaintance
with other young people of her own age, and some of them began to come
up to Tingvold on Sundays. Mildrid saw them either out of doors or in
her grandmother's room. Tingvold had always been a forbidden, and
consequently mysteriously attractive place to the young people. But
even now, only those with a certain quietness and seriousness of
disposition went there, for it could not be denied that there was
something subdued about Mildrid, that did not attract every one.

At this particular time there was a great deal of music and singing
among the youth of the district. For some reason or other there are
such periods, and these periods have their leaders. One of the leaders
now was, curiously enough, again of the race of Haugen.

Amongst a people where once on a time, even though it were hundreds of
years ago, almost every man and woman sought and found expression for
their intensest feelings and experiences in song, and were able
themselves to make the verses that gave them relief--amongst such a
people the art can never quite die out. Here and there, even though it
does not make itself heard, it must exist, ready on occasion to be
awakened to new life. But in this district songs had been made and
sung from time immemorial. It was by no mere chance that Ole Haugen
was born here, and here became what he was. Now it was his grandson in
whom the gift had reappeared.

Ole's son had been so much younger than the daughter who had married
into the Tingvold family, that the latter, already a married woman,
had stood godmother to her little brother. After a life full of
changes, this son, as an old man, had come into possession of his