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Standing on the level ground, quite apart from the crowd, stood a tall, handsome man, astonishingly like the owner of Stone Farm in his best days; the sunlight was coming and going over his brown skin and his soft beard. Now that he turned his face toward Pelle his big, open features reminded him of the sea. Hanne started, as though awakening from a deep sleep, and noticed Pelle.

She hung heavily on his arm and stood with her eyes fixed unwaveringly on the speakers' platform. Her hands busied themselves nervously about her hair. "You are so restless, child," said the mother, who had seated herself at their feet. "You might let me lean back against your knee; I was sitting so comfortably before." "Yes," said Hanne, and she put herself in the desired position.

sang Hanne, and the child sang with her she could sing already! Hanne's clear, quiet eyes rested on the child, and her expression was as joyful as though fortune had really come to her. She was like a young widow who has lived her share of life, and in the "Ark" every one addressed her as Widow Hanne.

The terrible winter is put to flight, and it is warm as in Hell itself. The blood is seething in their brains; it injects the whites of their eyes, and expresses itself in wanton frolic, in a need to dance till they drop, or to fight. "Hanne is wild to-night she has got her second youth," says Elvira and the other girls maliciously. Hold your tongues. No one shall criticize Hanne's behavior!

What was in that? "Mother, mother!" she cried shrilly, leaning far over the rickety rail. Hanne came swiftly up the stairs, with open mouth and red cheeks; and a face peeped out of every little nest. "Now Widow Hanne has taken the plunge," they said. They knew what a point of honor it had been with her to look after her mother and her child unaided. She was a good girl.

The terrible winter is put to flight, and it is warm as in Hell itself. The blood is seething in their brains; it injects the whites of their eyes, and expresses itself in wanton frolic, in a need to dance till they drop, or to fight. "Hanne is wild to-night she has got her second youth," says Elvira and the other girls maliciously. Hold your tongues. No one shall criticize Hanne's behavior!

He who has sold his own youth to the devil, in order to alleviate poverty? What does he want here on the dancing-floor? And Hanne, whence did she get her finery? She is still out of employment! And how in all the world has she grown so beautiful? They whisper behind her, following her as she advances; and in the midst of the hall she stands still and smiles. Her eyes burn with a volcanic fire.

Hanne grows red, redder than blood, and leans her head on his shoulder. Only see how she surrenders herself, blissful in her unashamed ecstasy! She droops backward in his arms, and from between her lips springs a great rose of blood, that gushes down over the summer-blue dress. Fastened to the spot by his terrible burden, Pelle stands there unable to move.

How proudly she carries her bosom, as though she were the bride of fortune and how she burns! Who is she? Can no one say? Oh, that is Widow Hanne, a respectable girl, who for seven long years faithfully trod her way to and from the factory, in order to keep her old mother and her child! But how comes it then that she has the discreet Pelle on her arm?

God only knew how he had allowed himself to be so entangled! It was a piece of luck that he hadn't been caught there was no future for Hanne. Madam Johnsen continued to lean on him affectionately, and she often came over for a little conversation; she could not forget the good times they had had together.