“We saw a fire there, which was lighted hundreds of years ago and has never once been allowed to go out,” said Birger.  “The miners light their lamps and torches at the flame.”

“Look, there are the chimneys of Falun now,” cried Gerda, pointing out of the car window; and a half-hour later the children found themselves at the neat little Raettvik station.

“Six o’clock, and just on time,” said Grandmother Ekman’s cheerful voice, and the next moment all three were gathered in a great hug.

“Is there room for triplets in your house?” asked Gerda.  “We have outgrown our twinship now, and there are three of us, instead of two.”

“There is enough of everything, for Karen to have her good share,” said the grandmother heartily; and they were soon driving along the pleasant country road, toward the red-painted farmhouse and the quiet living-room where the tall clock was still ticking cheerfully.

The next morning, and the next, the twins were up bright and early to show Karen all their favorite haunts; and the days flew by like minutes.

“Don’t you love it, here in Raettvik, Karen dear?” asked Gerda, on the third day, as the two little girls were busily at work in the pleasant living-room.

“Yes,” replied Karen; “but you never told me half enough beautiful things about it.  Surely there can be no lovelier place in the whole world than the mill-pool where we went yesterday with Linda Nilsson.”

Karen was coloring the letters in a motto to hang on the wall:  and Gerda, who was weaving a rug on her grandmother’s wooden loom, crossed the room to admire her friend’s work.  She leaned against Karen’s chair and read the words of the motto aloud:  “To read and not know, is to plow and not sow.”

“That is Grandmother Ekman’s favorite motto,” she said.  “She believes that a burning, golden plowshare was dropped from heaven ages ago, in the beginning of Sweden’s history, as a symbol of what the gods expected of the people; and she says that a well-kept farm and a well-read book are the most beautiful things in the world.”

Birger looked up from the door-step where he was whittling out a mast for one of his boats.  “If I didn’t intend to be an admiral in the navy when I am a man,” he said, “I should come here and take care of the farm.  It really is the prettiest farmhouse and the best farm in Dalarne.”

“It certainly will be the prettiest by night, when we have it dressed up for the midsummer festival,” Gerda declared.  “Come, Birger!  Come, Karen!  We must go and gather flowers and birch leaves to decorate the house.”

“But we must put away our work first,” said orderly Karen, gathering up her paints and brushes.

Gerda ran to push the loom back into the corner.  As she did so, she said with a smile, “The first rug I ever made was very ugly.  It had a great many dark strips in it.  That was because my grandmother made me weave in a dark strip every time I was naughty.”