“Do you know that mother dreamed of you before you came?”
“Of me?” Peer’s eyes opened wide. “What did she dream about me?”
A sudden flush came to the girl’s face, and she shook her head. “It’s foolish of me to sit here and tell you all this. But you see that was why we wanted so much to find out about you when you came. And it gives me a sort of feeling of our having known each other a long time.”
“You appear to have a very constant flow of high spirits, Froken Uthoug!”
“I? Why do you think—? Oh, well, yes. One can come by most things, you know, if one has to have them.”
“Even high spirits?”
She turned her head and looked towards the shore. “Some day perhaps—if we should come to be friends—I’ll tell you more about it.”
Peer bent to his oars and rowed on. The stillness of the night drew them nearer and nearer together, and made them silent; only now and then they would look at each other and smile.
“What mysterious creature is this I have come upon?” thought Peer. She might be about one-or two-and-twenty. She sat there with bowed head, and in this soft glow the oval face had a strange light of dreams upon it. But suddenly her glance came back and rested on him again, and then she smiled, and he saw that her mouth was large and her lips full and red.
“I wish I had been all over the world, like you,” she said.