"Well?"
"Do you think any one will ever come that way to me?"
"Yes, to be sure."
"How you talk! O—h! say, Eli? What if he should put his arm round my waist?" She covered her face.
There was much laughter, afterwards whispering and tittering.
The girls soon went away. They had neither seen Arne, nor the axe and the jacket, and he was glad.
Some days later he put Upland Knut in the houseman's place under Kampen.
"You shall no longer be lonely," said Arne.
Arne himself took to steady work. He had early learned to cut with the hand-saw, for he had himself added much to the house at home. Now he wanted to work at his trade, for he knew it was well to have some definite occupation; it was also good for him to get out among people; and so changed had he gradually become, that he longed for this whenever he had kept to himself for a while. Thus it came to pass that he was at the parsonage for a time that winter doing carpentering, and the two girls were often together there. Arne wondered, when he saw them, who it could be that was now courting Eli Böen.
It so happened one day, when they went out for a ride, that Arne had to drive for the young lady of the parsonage and Eli; he had good ears, yet could not hear what they were talking about; sometimes Mathilde spoke to him, at which Eli laughed and hid her face. Once Mathilde asked if it was true he could make verses. "No!" he said promptly: then they both laughed, chattered, and laughed. This made him indignant, and he pretended not to see them.