as only a week day, she was dressed in her best, as if
for church. After locking her door she put the key in its usual
place, under the stoop.

When the old woman had gone a few paces, she turned round to look
at her cabin, which appeared very small and very gray under the
shadow of the towering snow-clad fir trees. She glanced at her
humble home with an affectionate gaze. "Many a happy day have
I spent in that little old hut!" she mused solemnly. "Ah me! The
Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away."

Then she went on her way, down the forest road. She was very old
and exceeding fragile, but she was one of those who hold themselves
erect and firm, however much old age may try to bend them. She had
a sweet face and soft white hair. She looked so mild and gentle
that it was surprising to hear her speak with a voice that was as
strident and solemn as that of some old evangelist.

She had a long tramp ahead of her, for she was going down to the
Ingmar Farm to a meeting of the Hellgumists. Old Eva Gunnersdotter
was one of the most zealous converts to Hellgum's teachings. "Ah,
those were glorious times," she mumbled to herself as she trudged
on, "in the beginning when half the parish had gone over to
Hellgum! Who would have thought that so many were going to
backslide, and that after five years there would be hardly more
than a score of us left--not counting the children, of course!"

Her thoughts went back to the time when she, who for many years had
lived in solitude in the heart of the forest, forgotten by every
one, all at once had found a lot of brothers and sisters who came
to her in her loneliness, who never forgot to clear a path to her
cabin after a big snowfall, and who always kept her little shed
well filled with dry firewood--and all without her having to ask
for it. She recalled to mind the time when Karin, daughter of
Ingmar, and her sisters, and many more of the best people in the
parish, used to come and hold love feasts in her little gray cabin.

"Alas, that so many should have abandoned the only true way of
salvation!" she sighed. "Now retribution will come upon us. Next
summer we must all perish because so few among us have heard the
call, and because those who have heard it have not continued
steadfast."

The old woman then fell to pondering over Hellgum's letters, those
letters which the Hellgumists regarded as Apostolic writings and
read aloud at all their meetings, as the Bible is read in the
chu