"Yes, child, I see it."
But Louise has only looked in for a moment to beg some cake for Lorentz
and herself, and be off again on her ski to the hill-slopes. "Thank you,
mother--you're a darling!" And with a slice in each hand she dashes out,
glowing with health and the cold air.
If only Peer could glow with health again! But though one day they might
persuade themselves that now--now at last he had turned the corner--the
next he would be lying tossing about in misery, and it all seemed
more hopeless than ever. He had taken to the doctors' medicines
again--arsenic and iron and so forth--and the quiet and fresh air they
had prescribed were here in plenty; would nothing do him any good? There
were not so many months of their year left now.
And then? Another winter here? And living on charity--ah me! Merle shook
her head and sighed.
The time had come, too, when Louise should go to school.
"Send the children over to me--all three of them, if you like," wrote
Aunt Marit from Bruseth. No, thanks; Merle knew what that meant. Aunt
Marit wanted to keep them for good.
Lose her children--give away her children to others? Was the day to come
when that burden, too, would be laid upon them?
But schooling they must have; they must learn enough at least to fit
them to make a living when they grew up. And if their own parents could
not afford them schooling, why--why then perhaps they had no right to
keep them?
Merle sewed and sewed on, lifting her head now and again, so that the
sunlight fell on her face.
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