"Beware of that crown, child," her father had
said to her, "and wear it not before the time.
There is not always blessing in the bridal
silver." And she looked wonderingly up into
his eyes and answered: "But it glitters,
father;" and from that time forth they had
named her Glitter-Brita.
And Glitter-Brita grew up to be a fair and
winsome maiden, and wherever she went the
wooers flocked on her path. Bjarne shook
his head at her, and often had harsh words
upon his lips, when he saw her braiding field-
flowers into her yellow tresses or clasping the
shining brooches to her bodice; but a look
of hers or a smile would completely disarm
him. She had a merry way of doing things
which made it all seem like play; but work went
rapidly from her hands, while her ringing laughter
echoed through the house, and her sunny
presence made it bright in the dusky ancestral
halls. In her kitchen the long rows of copper
pots and polished kettles shone upon the walls,
and the neatly scoured milk-pails stood like
soldiers on parade about the shelves under the
ceiling. Bjarne would often sit for hours watching
her, and a strange spring-feeling would steal
into his heart. He felt a father's pride in her
stately growth and her rich womanly beauty.
"Ah!" he would say to himself, "she has the
pure blood in her veins and, as true as I live,
the farm shall be hers." And then, quite
contrary to his habits, he would indulge in a little
reverie, imagining the time when he, as an
aged man, should have given the estate over
into her hands, and seeing her as a worthy matron
preside at the table, and himself rocking
his grandchildren on his knee.
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