t she had to hold out, and her sufferings became greater.

Then a warm tear fell upon her head. It trickled over her face and her
neck, all the way down to the bread. Another tear fell, then many
followed. Who was weeping over little Inger? Had she not a mother up
yonder on the earth? The tears of anguish which a mother sheds over
her erring child always reach it; but they do not comfort the
child--they burn, they increase the suffering. And oh! this
intolerable hunger; yet not to be able to snatch one mouthful of the
bread she was treading under foot! She became as thin, as slender as a
reed. Another trial was that she heard distinctly all that was said of
her above on the earth, and it was nothing but blame and evil. Though
her mother wept, and was in much affliction, she still said,--

"Pride goes before a fall. That was your great fault, Inger. Oh, how
miserable you have made your mother!"

Her mother and all who were acquainted with her were well aware of the
sin she had committed in treading upon bread. They knew that she had
sunk into the bog, and was lost; the cowherd had told that, for he had
seen it himself from the brow of the hill.

"What affliction you have brought on your mother, Inger!" exclaimed
her mother. "Ah, well! I expected no better from you."

"Would that I had never been born!" thought Inger; "that would have
been much better for me. My mother's whimpering can do no good now."

She heard how the family, the people of distinction who had been so
kind to her, spoke. "She was a wicked child," they said; "she valued
not the gifts of our Lord, but trod them under her feet. It will be
difficult for her to get the gates of grace open to admit her."

"They ought to have brought me up better," thought Inger. "They should
have taken the whims out of me, if I had any."

She heard that there was a common ballad made about her, "the bad girl
who trod upon bread, to keep her shoes nicely clean," and this ballad
was sung from one end of the country to the other.

"That any one should have to suffer so much for such as that--be
punished so severely for such a trifle!" thought Inger. "All these
others are punished justly, for no doubt there was a great deal to
punish; but ah, how I suffer!"

And her heart became still harder than the substance into which she
had been turned.

"No one can be better in such society. I will not grow better here.
See how they glare at me!"

And her heart became still ha