"Yes. Did he not tell you about it?"
"No."
As soon as the callers left, Mary went to her father, who was unpacking some of the art treasures which were to remain in town.
"Father, is it the case that you sent my portraits to exhibitions?"
He smiled, and said: "Yes, my child, I did. And they have given pleasure to many. I was asked to send them. They wrote and asked me each time."
He spoke in such a gentle voice, and Mary thought it so considerate of him that he had not told her, and had forbidden Mrs. Dawes to tell—probably Jörgen Thiis too—that she did what she very seldom did, went up to him and kissed him.
So this was what her father, Mrs. Dawes, and Jörgen Thiis had so often sat whispering about. This was why the home newspapers had been kept from her. Everything had been planned—even to the proposal to travel home at this particular moment! She almost began to like Jörgen Thiis.
When they left for Krogskogen in the afternoon, a crowd of young people assembled on the pier called: "Au revoir on Sunday!"
Mary was charmed with the view as they sailed along. The short half hour was spent, as it were, in recognising one old acquaintance after another. The new, or at least much altered, high road along the coast was now finished. It looked remarkably well, especially where it cut across the headlands, often through the rock. At Krogskogen it led, as before, from the one point across the level to the other, passing close to the landing-place and directly below the chapel and the churchyard.
And Krogskogen itself—how snugly it lay! She had remembered its loneliness, but had forgotten how beautiful it was. This calm, glittering bay with the sea-birds! The ripple yonder where the river flows in, the level land stretching back between the heights, and these in their robes of green! Were the trees round the house really no higher? How nice it looked, the house—long and white, with black window frames and black foundation wall. From one chimney thick smoke was rising, in cheerful welcome. She jumped on shore before the others and ran on in front. A little girl, between eight and ten, who was running down from the house, stopped when she saw Mary, and rushed back as hard as she could. But Mary overtook her at the steps. "I've caught you!" she cried, turning her round. "Who are you?" The fair-haired, smiling creature was unable to answer. On the steps stood the maids, and one of them said that the child's name was Nanna, and that she was there to run errands. "You shall be my little maid!" said Mary, and led her up the steps. She nodded to each of the women, and felt that they were disappointed because she hurried on without speaking to them. She was longing to set foot on the thick carpets, to feel the peculiar light of the hall about her, to see the huge cupboards and all the pictures and curios of the Dutch days. And she was longing even more to reach her own room. The silence of the stairs and of the long, rather dark passage—never had it played such a game of whispers with her as it did to-day. She felt it like something soft, half-hidden, confidential and close. It was still speaking when she reached the door of her room; it actually kept her from opening the door for a moment.