“Oh, let us have it, please let us have it,” said Blanche, joining them. “You have made me curious now.”

So Sigrid, not liking to refuse, repeated first the poem itself and then the English translation:

“The fox lay under the birch-tree’s root

Beside the heather;

And the hare bounded with lightsome foot

Over the heather;

‘To-day is just a day to my mind,

All sunny before and sunny behind

Over the heather!’

And the fox laughed under the birch-tree’s root