“Of course they are still playing.  Don’t you hear them?”

“Yes, now I do,” said Amrei.  And now they stopped, for her partner probably felt that she was becoming giddy with happiness.

The stranger led Amrei to the table, and gave her wine to drink, and did not let go her hand.  He lifted the Swedish ducat that hung from her necklace, and said: 

“This ducat is in a good place.”

“And it came from a good hand,” answered Amrei.  “That necklace was given to me when I was a little child.”

“By a relative?”

“No, the lady was no relative.”

“Dancing agrees with you apparently.”

“Oh, indeed it does!  You see, I’m obliged to jump around so much all the year around when nobody is playing for me—­and therefore I enjoy it doubly now.”

“You look as round as a ball,” said the stranger in jest.  “You must live where the food is good.”

Amrei replied quickly: 

“It’s not the food itself that does it, but the way one enjoys it.”

The stranger nodded; and after a pause, he spoke again, half questioningly: 

“You are the daughter of Farmer—­”

“No, I am a maid,” replied Amrei, looking him full in the face.  The stranger’s eyes almost fell; the lids quivered, but he held them open by force.  And this struggle and victory of the bodily eye seemed to be a symbol of what was going on within him.  He felt almost inclined to leave the girl sitting there; but he resisted and conquered the impulse, and said: 

“Come, let us have another dance.”

He held her hand fast, and the pleasure and excitement began again; but this time it was more quiet and moderate.  Both of them seemed to feel that the sensation of being lifted to the sky was over and past; and this thought was evidently in Amrei’s mind when she said: 

“Well, we have been very happy together once, even if we don’t see each other again in all our lives, and even though neither of us knows the other’s name.”

The youth nodded and said: 

“You are right.”

Amrei held the end of her braid between her lips in embarrassment, and after a pause spoke again: 

“The enjoyment one has once had cannot be taken from one; and whoever you are, you need never repent of having given a poor girl a pleasure she will remember all her life.”

“I don’t repent of it,” replied her partner.  “But I know that you repent of having answered me so sharply this morning.”

“Oh, yes, you are right there!” cried Amrei; and then the stranger said: 

“Would you venture to go out into the field with me?”

“Yes.”

“And do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“But what will your people say?”

“I have nobody but myself to give account of my actions to; I am an orphan.”

Hand in hand the two went out of the dancing-room.  Barefoot heard several people whispering and tittering behind her, but she kept her eyes fixed on the ground.  She wondered if she had not ventured too far after all.