learning," as the country people said. The boy was sound at heart, and
the result of the slights he met with was that by degrees he left off
his town dress and town speech, and began to work on his father's
great farm as a simple labourer. His father understood--he had begun
to understand before the lad did--and he told his wife to take no
notice. So they said nothing about marriage, nor about the change in
Endrid's ways; only his father was more and more friendly to him, and
consulted him in everything connected with the farm and with his
other trade, and at last gave the management of the farm altogether
into his hands. And of this they never needed to repent.

So the time passed till Endrid was thirty-one. He had been steadily
adding to his father's wealth and to his own experience and
independence; but had never made the smallest attempt at courtship;
had not looked at a girl, either in their own district or elsewhere.
And now his parents were beginning to fear that he had given up
thoughts of it altogether. But this was not the case.

On a neighbouring farm lived in good circumstances another
well-descended peasant family, that had at different times
intermarried with the race of Tingvold. A girl was growing up there
whom Endrid had been fond of since she was a little child; no doubt he
had quietly set his heart on her, for only six months after her
confirmation he spoke. She was seventeen then and he thirty-one.
Randi, that was the girl's name, did not know at first what to answer;
she consulted her parents, but they said she must decide for herself.
He was a good man, and from a worldly point of view she could not make
a better match, but the difference in their ages was great, and she
must know herself if she had the courage to undertake the new duties
and cares that would come upon her as mistress of the large farm. The