child! I know that you are tired and
worn out. This is my house. He is not allowed to come in here. But
you come. Now you are my daughter, and I cannot let you go to
strangers, do you understand?"

She caressed her daughter-in-law and chatted to her and drew and
pushed her quite imperceptibly forward to the door. Step by step
she lured her on, and at last got her inside the house; but Boerje
she shut out. And there, within, the old woman began to ask who she
was and how it had all happened. And she wept over her and made her
weep over herself. The old woman was merciless about her son. She,
Astrid, did right; she could not stay with such a man. It was true
that he was in the habit of lying, it was really true.

She told her how it had been with her son. He had been so fair in
face and limbs, even when he was small, that she had always
marvelled that he was a poor man's child. He was like a little
prince gone astray. And ever after it had always seemed as if he
had not been in his right place. He saw everything on such a large
scale. He could not see things as they were, when it concerned
himself. His mother had wept many a time on that account. But never
before had he done any harm with his lies. Here, where he was
known, they only laughed at him.--But now he must have been so
terribly tempted. Did she really not think, she, Astrid, that it
was wonderful how the fisher boy had been able to deceive them? He
had always known so much about wealth, as if he had been born to
it. It must be that he had come into the world in the wrong place.
See, that was another proof,--he had never thought of choosing a
wife in his own station.

"Where will he sleep to-night?" asked Astrid, suddenly.

"I imagine he will lie outside on the sand. He will be too anxious
to go away from here."

"I suppose it is best for him to come in," said Astrid.

"Dearest child, you cannot want to see him. He can get along out
there if I give him a blanket."

She let him actually sleep out on the sand that night, thinking it
best for Astrid not to see him. And with her she talked and talked,
and kept her, not by force, but by cleverness, not by persuasion,
but by real goodness.

But when she had at last succeeded in keeping her daughter-in-law
for her son, and had got the young people reconciled, and had
taught Astrid that her vocation in life was just to be Boerje
Nilsson's wife and to make him as happy as she could,--and that
had not been the