“Oh! tak fur sidst[A] good Peder.  Hi, though!  What is that you bring with you?”

[Footnote A:  Thanks for seeing you again.]

Before she could be answered, the children, whose first nap was nearly over, awoke and saw their father with the little girl clinging to his hand, and looking shyly at them from his sheltering arm.

“Oh!” cried Olga, “a little sister! My wish has come true!”—­and she ran to the new-comer and gave her sweet kisses of welcome; at which father Peder said, “That is my own good Olga.”

But grandmother Ingeborg, who had put on her spectacles, said: 

“Ah!  I see now!  A good-for-nothing Lapp child!  She shall not stay here, surely!”

“Listen,” said Peder Olsen, “and I will tell you why I brought home the little Hansa, for that is her name,”—­and he told the story of the father’s drinking so much finkel, and offering to give his little girl for a pipe, and how he himself had purchased her.  “But see!” added the worthy Peder, turning toward Hansa, “you are not bound but for as long as the heart says stay.”

Hansa looked about, and, meeting Olga’s sweet, entreating glance, said, “I will stay ever.”

Then Olga cried, joyously, “Now, indeed, have I a sister!” and took her to her own little bed, where soon they both were sleeping, side by side.

As for Olaf and Erik, they were still silent, though now from anger, and that was very bad.

Grandmother Ingeborg, I think, was angry, too, for said she to herself: 

“Now I shall have to spin more cloth, and sew and knit, that when her own clothes wear out we may clothe this miserable Lapp child” (for the good dame was a true Norwegian, and despised the Lapps); “and our little ones must divide their brown bread and milk with her, for we are too poor to buy more, and it is very bad altogether.  Ah!  I was sure something bad would happen,”—­and grandmother fairly grumbled herself into bed.

In the morning all were awake early, you may be sure, and gazing curiously at the new-comer, whom they had been almost too sleepy to see perfectly before; and this is how she appeared to their wondering eyes.

She seemed about twelve years old, but no taller than Olga, who was just ten.  She had beautiful soft, brown eyes; and fair, flaxen hair, which hung in rich, wavy locks far down her back.  She wore a short skirt of dark blue cloth, with yellow stripes around it; a blue apron, embroidered with bright-colored threads; a little scarlet jacket; a jaunty cap, also of scarlet cloth, with a silver tassel; and neat, short boots of tanned reindeer-skin, embroidered with scarlet and white.

Soon grandmother Ingeborg, who had been out milking the cow, came in, and almost dropped her great basin of milk, in her anger.

“What!” cried she to Hansa, “all your Sunday clothes on?  That will never do!”

“But I have no others,” said the little maid.