rd Endrid got the impression of there being prosperity there
now, and plenty of life. Randi came backwards and forwards, making
preparations for the dinner, and often listened to what was being
said; and it was easy to see that the two old people, at first so shy
of Hans, became by degrees a little surer of him; for the questions
began to be more personal.

They did not fail to observe his good manners at the dinner-table. He
sat with his back to the wall, opposite Mildrid and her mother; the
father sat at the end of the table on his high seat. The farm people
had dined earlier, in the kitchen, where indeed all in the house
generally took their meals together. They were making the difference
to-day because they were unwilling that Hans should be seen. Mildrid
felt at table that her mother looked at her whenever Hans smiled. He
had one of those serious faces that grow very pleasant when they
smile. One or two such things Mildrid added together in her mind, and
brought them to the sum she wanted to arrive at. Only she did not feel
herself so sure, but that the strain in the room was too great for
her, and she was glad enough to escape from it by going after dinner
again to her grandmother's.

The men took a walk about the farm, but they neither went where the
people were working, nor where grandmother could see them. Afterwards
they came and sat in the room again, and now mother had finished her
work and could sit with them. By degrees the conversation naturally
became more confidential, and in course of time (but this was not till
towards evening) Randi ventured to ask Hans how it had all come about
between him and Mildrid; Mildrid herself had been able to give no
account of it. Possibly it was principally out of feminine curiosity
that the mother asked, but the question was a very welcome one to
Hans.

He described everything minutely, and with such evident happiness,
that the old people were almost at once carried away by his story. And
when he came to yesterday--to the forced march Beret had made in
search of him because Mildrid was plunged in anguish of mind on her
parents' account--and then came to Mildrid herself, and told of her
ever-increasing remorse because her parents knew nothing; told of her
flight down to them, and how, worn-out in soul and body, she had had
to sit down and rest and had fallen asleep, alone and unhappy--then
the old people felt that they recognised their child again. And the
mother espe