and a miser; but in the end it pays you as well."

It was so seldom she smiled. "How pretty it made her!" thought Lars
Peter, looking lovingly at her. She had lately been happier and more
even tempered--no doubt the prospect of getting a better home.

He counted the money--over three hundred crowns! "That's a step
forward," said he. The next evening when returning home he had
bricks on the cart; and every evening he continued bringing home
materials for building.

People who passed the Crow's Nest saw the erection of beams and
bricks shoot up, and rumors began to float round the neighborhood.
It began with a whisper that the old woman had left more than had
been spoken of. Then it was said that perhaps, after all, old Maren
had not died a natural death. And some remembered having seen Soerine
on her way from the Crow's Nest towards the hamlet, on the same
afternoon as her mother's death; little by little more was added to
this, until it was declared that Soerine had strangled her own
mother. Ditte was probably--with the exception of the mother--the
only one who knew the real facts, and nothing could be got out of
her when it affected her family--least of all on an occasion like
this. But it was strange that she should happen to arrive just at
the critical moment; and still more remarkable that she should run
to Per Nielsen's and not home with the news of her grandmother's
death.

Neither Soerine herself nor Lars Peter heard a word of these rumors.
Ditte heard it at school through the other children, but did not
repeat it. When her mother was more than usually considerate, her
hate would seethe up in her--"Devil!" it whispered inside her, and
suddenly she would feel an overwhelming desire to shout to her
father: "Mother stifled Granny with the eiderdown!" It was worst of
all when hearing her speak lovingly about the old woman. But the
thought of his grief stopped her. He went about now like a great
child, seeing nothing, and was more than ever in love with Soerine;
he was overjoyed by the change for the better. Ditte and the others
loved him as never before.

When Soerine was too hard on the children, they would hide from her
outside the house, and only appear when their father returned at
night. But since Granny's death there had been no need for this. The
mother was entirely changed; when her temper was about to flare up,
an unseen hand seemed to hold it back.

But it happened at times that Ditte could not bear