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108
JENNY

them a little, and I may be able to earn something. What I can save now, I shall want here later."

Helge took the cup she gave him and seized her hand:

"But next time you come here you will come with me; for I suppose you will—you mean—that we should marry?"

His face was so young and so anxiously inquiring that she had to kiss him several times, forgetting that she had been afraid of that word, which had not been mentioned between them before.

"I suppose that will be the most practical plan, you dear boy, since we have agreed to be together always."

Helge kissed her hand, asking quietly: "When?"

"When you like," she answered as quietly—and firmly.

Again he kissed her hand.

"What a pity we can't be married out here," he said a moment after in a different voice.

She did not answer, but stroked his hair softly. Helge sighed:

"But I suppose we ought not to, as we are going home so soon in any case. Your mother would feel hurt, don't you think, at such a hurried marriage?"

Jenny was silent. It had never occurred to her that she owed her mother any account of her doings—her mother had not consulted her when she had wanted to marry again.

"It would hurt my people, I know. I don't like to admit it, but it is so, and I should much prefer to write and tell them that I am engaged. As you are going home before me, it would be nice of you to go and see them."

Jenny bent her head as if to shake off a disagreeable sensation, and said:

"I will, dear, if you wish me to—of course."

"I don't like it at all. It has been so lovely here—only you and I, nobody else in all the world. But mother would be so vexed, you see, and I don't want to make things worse for