of the girl.

"I was stopping at the inn with Possessionaten Bilberg and his little
daughter, the one I have taken care of so long. I found out you were in
this neighbourhood, and so I got some one to show me the way to where
you were living." She did not say that she had seen her mother at
church, nor would she have liked to own, even to herself, that she was
now repulsed by the appearance and manners of one to whom she was bound
by the strongest of ties.

"Come in," said the old woman, courtesying as to a stranger. "It's a
poor place, but you are welcome."

A poor place it was indeed, and Karin with her belongings looked there
like a transplanted flower from a far country. They who had once been so
near to each other seemed now to have almost no common ground on which
to meet.

"I did not know how you had it, mother," said Karin at last. She had
been silenced by her first view of the poor room.

"It is worse than it was in Norrland, when you went away, so long ago.
Your brother Erik came home, and was wild-like, as he always was. He
pulled himself down, and was sick a long while, and then he died. There
was the funeral, and the doctor, and all that; and there was not much
left, for of course I couldn't do a turn of work while I was nursing
him."

"Just like him, to take all you had!" said the daughter, indignant.

The old woman did not seem to notice the angry exclamation. A sudden
light made beautiful the old face as she said: "He came round at the
last, and almost like an angel. It did me good to hear him talk. I
didn't mind anything when he had come round. I am sure he went to heaven
when he died. He was my only boy, and I loved him!" she continued, as
if she were speaking to a stranger; and then suddenly remembering who
her visitor was, she added: "You would not have known him for the same.
'Tell Karin,' he said to me--'tell her she must forgive me. Tell her to
remember she'll need to have her sins forgiven some time. There's only
one way.' He said so!" and there was another courtesy of apology that
she was talking so to that strange young lady who said she was her
daughter.

"Oh dear!" said Karin, looking at her watch, "I must go now.
Possessionaten and his little girl were out for a drive, and I did not
leave any word at the inn where I was going. I will come soon again.
Don't feel hard to me about Erik or anything. Remember I did not know
how you had it. They wrote me there was a cottage somewhere yo