rder, and she felt a hatred towards all
mankind.

"They have a nice story to tell up there now. Oh, how I suffer!"

She listened, and heard them telling her history as a warning to
children, and the little ones called her "ungodly Inger." "She was so
naughty," they said, "so very wicked, that she deserved to suffer."

The children always spoke harshly of her. One day, however, that
hunger and misery were gnawing her most dreadfully, and she heard her
name mentioned, and her story told to an innocent child--a little
girl--she observed that the child burst into tears in her distress for
the proud, finely-dressed Inger.

"But will she never come up again?" asked the child.

The answer was,--

"She will never come up again."

"But if she will beg pardon, and promise never to be naughty again?"

"But she will _not_ beg pardon," they said.

"Oh, how I wish she would do it!" sobbed the little girl in great
distress. "I will give my doll, and my doll's house too, if she may
come up! It is so shocking for poor little Inger to be down there!"

These words touched Inger's heart; they seemed almost to make her
good. It was the first time any one had said "poor Inger," and had not
dwelt upon her faults. An innocent child cried and prayed for her. She
was so much affected by this that she felt inclined to weep herself;
but she could not, and this was an additional pain.

Years passed on in the earth above; but down where she was there was
no change, except that she heard more and more rarely sounds from
above, and that she herself was more seldom mentioned. At last one day
she heard a sigh, and "Inger, Inger, how miserable you have made me! I
foretold that you would!" These were her mother's last words on her
deathbed.

And again she heard herself named by her former employers, and her
mistress said,--

"Perhaps I may meet you once more, Inger. None know whither they are
to go."

But Inger knew full well that her excellent mistress would never come
to the place where _she_ was.

Time passed on, and on, slowly and wretchedly. Then once more Inger
heard her name mentioned, and she beheld as it were, directly above
her, two clear stars shining. These were two mild eyes that were
closing upon earth. So many years had elapsed since a little girl had
cried in childish sorrow over "poor Inger," that that child had become
an old woman, whom our Lord was now about to call to himself. At that
hour, when the thoughts and the