At that moment a pretty little maid curtsied before them, saying,
"Göteborg, if you please."

"Oh dear," sighed Gerda, gathering up her treasures, "here's the end of
our long journey over the wonderful canal!"

But Erik looked down the river to the tall chimneys of the iron-works and
said to himself, "And here's the beginning of my work in the world."




CHAPTER XII

A WINTER CARNIVAL


"Abroad is good but home is better," quoted Birger, as the railroad train
whizzed across the country, bearing the twins toward home once more after
four happy days of sight-seeing in Göteborg.

"Vacation will soon be over and we shall be back again in our dear old
school," exclaimed Gerda, with a comical expression on her face.

"I feel as if we had been going to the best kind of a school all summer,"
said her brother, looking out of the window at the broad fields and
little red farmhouses cuddling down in the green landscape. "We have been
learning about the largest cities, and the canals and railroads, the
lakes and rivers, and that is what we have to do when we study geography
in school."