Nevertheless, when Easter vacation arrived, Erik could not help welcoming it. He could not help being excited on St. Walpurgis (väl po͝or´gḗs) Eve, when fires were lighted on the hills and the young people sang.
[Illustration: HAPPY CHILDREN IN THE PROVINCE OF DALECARLIA _Swedish Travel Information Bureau, Inc._]
At daybreak, Greta and Nils, with Erik half asleep on his shoulder, wandered toward home, happy and tired. They stopped at the big house, and Nils said, "Good-bye, Greta."
He touched her hand very gently, and she answered, "Good-bye, Nils."
Then she looked down at the earth where some tiny, sharp, green tulip leaves were pushing their way upward.
"Spring is here," she said, when suddenly Erik let out a piercing shriek.
"And the Baron is here, too!" he cried. "Just look."
Sure enough, Baron von Engstrom's elegant car was standing before the door of Hanssonborg.
From that time on, Erik saw little of Greta. But one day his mother sent him over to Hanssonborg on an errand, and he stopped to chat with Fru Svenson and to see what she was cooking.
He left the kitchen with a blouse full of cookies and the news that the Baron was ill in bed.
"What a very bad-tempered gentleman the Baron is!" Fru Svenson had exclaimed. "Always complaining and never satisfied!"
Returning home, Erik walked through the forest. A lark sang, and he stopped to answer. Snow still lay under the pines, but one felt the stirring restlessness beneath the earth, as of plants and roots asking to live.
At the shore of the lake, Nils was painting a rowboat and Greta was with him. Erik watched the sunbeams dancing on her golden hair as they danced upon the glistening water.
Greta was reading aloud to Nils. She was reading to him about the business of a market garden. It was the study that Nils liked best. She had often helped him with it before the Baron's arrival.
How happy they looked together, and how handsome, too! Like a god and a goddess in Norse mythology.
Erik approached. Greta closed the book and arose.
"I must go back to the house now," she said. "Will you walk a way with me, Erik?"
Nils stood up, too, and wiped his paint-smeared hands on his working overalls. He said nothing, but Erik could see the suffering in his face.