Book 1 The Land of the Midnight Sun Chapter 16

She was at that moment busied in adjusting Errington's knapsack more comfortably, her fair, laughing face turned up to his, and her bright eyes alight with love and tender solicitude.

"I've a good mind not to go at all," he whispered in her ear. "I'll come back and stay with you all day."

"You foolish boy!" she answered merrily. "You would miss seeing the grand fall--all for what? To sit with me and watch me spinning, and you would grow so very sleepy! Now, if I were a man, I would go with you."

"I'm very glad you're not a man!" said Errington, pressing the little hand that had just buckled his shoulder-strap. "Though I wish you were going with us. But I say, Thelma, darling, won't you be lonely?"

She laughed gaily. "Lonely? I? Why, Britta is with me--besides, I am never lonely now." She uttered the last word softly, with a shy, upward glance. "I have so much to think about--" She paused and drew her hand away from her lover's close clasp. "Ah," she resumed, with a mischievous smile, "you are a conceited boy! You want to be missed! You wish me to say that I shall feel most miserable all the time you are away! If I do, I shall not tell you!"

"Thelma, child?" called Olaf Güldmar, at this juncture "keep the gates bolted and doors barred while we are absent. Remember, thou and Britta must pass the night alone here,--we cannot be at home till late in the evening of to-morrow. Let no one inside the garden, and deny thyself to all comers. Dost thou hear?"