hardly see.

Her mother asked, as her father had done before, about things at the
soeter; got the same information and a little more; for she asked
more particularly. It was evident that both sides were making this
subject last as long as possible, but it was soon exhausted. In the
pause that came, both parents looked at Mildrid. She avoided the look,
and asked what news there was of the neighbours. This subject was
also drawn out as long as possible, but it came to an end too. The
same silence, the same expectant eyes turned on the daughter. There
was nothing left for her to ask about, and she began to rub her hand
back and forwards on the bench.

"Have you been in at grandmother's?" asked her mother, who was
beginning to get frightened.

No, she had not been there. This meant then that their daughter had
something particular to say to _them_, and it could not with any
seemliness be put off longer.

"There is something that I must tell you," she got out at last, with
changing colour and downcast eyes.

Her father and mother exchanged troubled looks. Mildrid raised her
head and looked at them with great imploring eyes.

"What is it, my child?" asked her mother anxiously.

"I am betrothed," said Mildrid; hung her head again, and burst into
tears.

No more stunning blow could have fallen on the quiet circle. The
parents sat looking at each other, pale and silent. The steady, gentle
Mildrid, for whose careful ways and whose obedience they had so often
thanked God, had, without asking their advice, without their
knowledge, taken life's most important step, a step that was also
decisive for _their_ past and future. Mildrid felt each thought along
with them, and fear stopped her crying.

Her father asked gently and slowly: "To whom, my child?"

After a silence came the whispered answer: "To Hans Haugen."

No name or event connected with Haugen had been mentioned in that room
for more than twenty years. In her parents' opinion nothing but evil
had come to Tingvold from there. Mildrid again knew their thoughts:
she sat motionless, awaiting her sentence.

Her father spoke again mildly and slowly: "We don't know the man,
neither I nor your mother--and we didn't know that you knew him."

"And I didn't know him either," said Mildrid.

The astonished parents looked at each other. "How did it happen then?"
It was her mother who asked this.

"That is what I don't know myself," said Mildrid.

"But, my child, surely