"But, no gossip, mind you, now. No big talk about relationship and that kind of thing," said the farmer as he followed Sören out of the gate. "The child must take the girl's name—and no claim on us."
"No, of course not!" said Sören, eager to be off. He had got the two hundred crowns in his inner pocket, and was afraid the farmer might demand them back again.
"I'll send you down a paper one of these days and get your receipt for the money," said the farmer. "It is best to have it fixed up all right and legal."
He said the word "legal" with such emphasis and familiarity that Sören was more than a little startled.
"Yes, yes," was all Sören said and slipped into the porch with his cap between his hands. It was not often he took his hat off to any one, but the two hundred crowns had given him respect for the farmer. The people of Sands farm were a race who, if they did break down their neighbor's fence, always made good the damage they had done.
Sören started off and ran over the fields. The money was more than he and Maren had ever before possessed. All he had to do now was to lay out the notes in front of her so as to make a show that she might be impressed. For Maren had fixed her mind on the farmer's son.
[CHAPTER III]
A Child Is Born
There are a milliard and a half of stars in the heavens, and—as far as we know—a milliard and a half of human beings on the earth. Exactly the same number of both! One would almost think the old saying was right,—that every human being was born under his own star. In hundreds of costly observatories all over the world, on plain and mountain, talented scientists are adjusting the finest instruments and peering out into the heavens. They watch and take photographic plates, their whole life taken up with the one idea: to make themselves immortal with having discovered a new star. Another celestial body—added to the milliard and a half already moving gracefully round.