will be near the end of the world."

Meanwhile, everything was prepared for their embarkation. If Mr.
Otto would take the further oar, and was inclined to pass the night
on the sea, there was a place for him in the boat. But he had
promised Rosalie to be back before evening. The grandmother now
prayed, kneeling with the others, and immediately after quick
strokes of the oars the flat boat rowed away from the shore. The
fate of France was forgotten; their calling occupied the fishermen.

The old woman seemed to listen to the strokes of the oars; her dead
eyes rested immovably on the sea. A sea-mew passed close to her in
its flight. "That was a bird!" said she. "Is there no one here
beside ourselves?"

"No; no one at all," answered Otto, carelessly.

"Is no one in the hut, no one behind the sand-hills?" again asked
the grandmother. "It was not on account of the dried meat that I
came here--it was not to wet my face on the shore; I speak with you
alone, which I could not do in the house. Give me your hand! Now
that the old man rests in the grave, you yourself will guide the
rudder; the estate will be sold, and you will not come again to the
west coast. Our Lord has made it dark before my eyes before He has
closed my ears and given me leave to go. I can no longer see you,
but I have you in my thought as you looked before you left our
land. That you are handsomer now I can easily imagine; but gayer
you are not! Talk you certainly can, and I have heard you laugh;
but that was little better than the two last years you were here.
Once it was different with you--no fairy could be wilder than you!"