Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. She had heard these words before. The first time it was in the churchyard that blustering winter day her fourteen relatives were buried, — all whom she had loved, both parents and grandparents, and brothers and sisters. In fancy she saw the scene again ! The wind had here and there swept away the snow, the pickets of the fence stood out in sharp prominence, huge rocks loomed up like the heads of monsters whose bodies were covered by the snow-drifte. The wind whistled behind the little group of mourners through the open church porch whose blinds had been taken out, and down from the old wooden belfry came the clanging toll of the bell, like one cry of anguish after another. The people that were gathered together were blue with the cold ; they wore mittens and their garments were closely buttoned up. The priest appeared in sea-boots and had on a skin suit beneath his gown; his hands also were cased in large mittens, and he vigorously fought theair round about him with these. He waved one of them toward Magnhild. " This poor child," said he, " remained standing on her feet, and with her little sled in her hand she was borne downward and across the frozen stream, — the sole being the Lord saw fit to save. To what is she destined ? " She rode home with the priest, sitting on his lap. He had commended her to the care of the parish, and took her home with him " for the present," in order to set a good example. She nestled up to his fur overcoat, with her small cold hands inside of his huge mittens, beside his soft, plump hands. And all the while she kept thinking: " What am I destined to, I wonder?" She presumed that her mind would become clear on this point when she got into the house. But nothing met her eye here she had not seen before until she entered t...