But at the side of the goat there kneeled a little girl.
“Is it yours, this goat?” she asked.
Oeyvind stood with eyes and mouth wide open, thrust both hands into the breeches he had on, and asked, “Who are you?”
“I am Marit, mother’s little one, father’s fiddle, the elf in the house, grand-daughter of Ole Nordistuen of the Heide farms, four years old in the autumn, two days after the frost nights, I!”
“Are you really?” he said, and drew a long breath, which he had not dared to do so long as she was speaking.
“Is it yours, this goat?” asked the girl again.
“Ye-es,” he said, and looked up.
“I have taken such a fancy to the goat. You will give it to me?”
“No, that I won’t.”
She lay kicking her legs, and looking down at him, and then she said, “But if I give you a butter-cake for the goat, can I have him then?”