It was past midnight. Heights and woods and saeters lay lifeless in the
soft suffused reddish light. The lake-trout were not rising any more,
but now and again the screech of a cock-ptarmigan could be heard among
the withies.
"What made you come just here for your holiday, I wonder," she asked
suddenly.
"I leave everything to chance, Froken Uthoug. It just happened so. It's
all so homelike here, wherever one goes. And it is so wonderful to be
home in Norway again."
"But haven't you been to see your people--your father and mother--since
you came home?"
"I--! Do you suppose I have a father and mother?"
"But near relations--surely you must have a brother or sister somewhere
in the world?"
"Ah, if one only had! Though, after all, one can get on without."
She looked at him searchingly, as if trying to see whether he spoke in
earnest. Then she said:
"Do you know that mother dreamed of you before you came?"
"Of me?" Peer's eyes opened wide. "What did she dream about me?"
A sudden flush came to the girl's face, and she shook her head. "It's
foolish of me to sit here and tell you all this. But you see that was
why we wanted so much to find out about you when you came. And it gives
me a sort of feeling of our having known each other a long time."
"You appear to have a very constant flow of high spirits, Froken
Uthoug!"
"I? Why do you think--? Oh, well, yes. One can come by most things, you
know, if one has to have them.
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