sh after all."

Isak asked: "Wasn't he terribly cruel himself, then?"

"Him!" exclaimed Inger, and told how kind he had been to her herself;
it was he who had got another doctor to operate on her mouth and make
a human being of her. Now there was only a scar to be seen.

Only a scar, yes. And a fine woman she was in her way, tall and not
over-stout, dark, with rich hair; in summer she went barefooted
mostly, and with her skirt kilted high; Inger was not afraid of
letting her calves be seen. Isak saw them--as who did not!

They did not quarrel, no. Isak had no talent for quarrelling, and his
wife had grown readier-witted to answer back. A thorough good quarrel
took a long time to grow with Isak, heavy stub of a man as he was;
he found himself all entangled in her words, and could say next to
nothing himself; and besides, he was fond of her--powerfully in love
was Isak. And it was not often he had any need to answer. Inger did
not complain; he was an excellent husband in many ways, and she let
him alone. What had she to complain of at all? Isak was not a man to
be despised; she might have married a worse. Worn out, was he? True,
he showed signs of being tired now at times, but nothing serious. He
was full of old health and unwasted strength, like herself, and in
this autumn of their married life he fulfilled his part at least as
affectionately as she did.

But nothing particularly beautiful nor grand about him? No. And here
came her superiority. Inger might well think to herself at times how
she had seen finer men; handsome gentlemen with walking-sticks and
handkerchiefs and starched collars to wear--oh, those gentlemen of the
town! And so she kept Isak in his place, treated him, as it were, no
better than he deserved. He was only a peasant, a clodhopper of the
wilds; if her mouth had been as it was now from the start she would
never have taken him; be sure of that. No, she could have done better
than that! The home he had given her, the life he offered her, were
poor enough; she might at least have married some one from her own
village, and lived among neighbours, with a circle of friends, instead
of here like an outcast in the wilds. It was not the place for her
now; she had learned to look differently at life.

Strange, how one could come to look differently at things! Inger found
no pleasure now in admiring a new calf; she did not clap her hands in
surprise when Isak came down from the hills with a big basket of