“My Amrei is intelligent enough.  She’s thirteen now, but more clever than many a person of thirty, and she knows what she wants,” said Black Marianne.

“You two ought to have been town-councilors,” said Farmer Rodel.  “But it’s my opinion, too, that the children ought not to be tied to a rope, like calves, and dragged away.  Well, let the man talk with them himself, and then we shall see what further is to be done.  He is after all their natural protector, and has the right to stand in their father’s place, if he likes.  Harkye; do you take a little walk with your brother’s children outside the village, and you women stay here, and let nobody try to persuade or dissuade them.”

The woodcutter took the two children by the hand, and went out of the room and out of the house with them.  In the street he asked the children: 

“Whither shall we go?”

“If you want to be our father, go home with us,” suggested Damie.  “Our house is down yonder.”

“Is it open?” asked the uncle.

“No, but Coaly Mathew has the key.  But he has never let us go in.  I’ll run on and get the key.”

Damie released himself quickly, and ran off.  Amrei felt like a prisoner as her uncle led her along by the hand.  He spoke earnestly and confidentially to her now, however, and explained, almost as if he were excusing himself, that he had a large family of his own and, that he could hardly get along with his wife and five children.  But now a man, who was the owner of large forests in America, had offered him a free passage across the ocean, and in five years, when he had cleared away the forest, he was to have a large piece of the best farm-land as his own property.  In gratitude to God, who had bestowed this upon him for himself and his family, he had immediately made up his mind to do a good deed by taking his brother’s children with him.  But he was not going to compel them to go; indeed, he would take them only on the condition that they should turn to him with their whole hearts and look upon him as their second father.

Amrei looked at him with eyes of wonder.  If she could only bring herself to love this man!  But she was almost afraid of him—­she could not help it.  And to have him thus fall from the clouds, as it were, and compel her to love him, rather turned her against him.

“Where is your wife?” asked Amrei.  She very likely felt that a woman would have broached the subject in a more gentle and gradual manner.

“I will tell you honestly,” answered her uncle.  “My wife does not interfere in this matter, and says she will neither persuade nor dissuade me.  She is a little sharp, but only at first—­if you are good to her, and you are a sensible child, you can twist her around your finger.  And if, once in a while, anything should happen to you that you don’t like, remember that you are at your father’s brother’s, and tell me about it alone.  I will help you all I can, and you shall see that your real life is just beginning.”