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Updated: May 28, 2025
Mildrid looked back once when she came to the barn, and he nodded to her. Then she went round the end of the barn, into the yard. Everything stood in its old, accustomed order, and it was very quiet. Some hens were walking on the barn-steps. The wooden framework for the stacks had been brought out and set up against the storehouse wall since she was there last; that was the only change she saw.
While they were still talking about this, and at the same time following the dog, they saw him stop and look back, wagging his tail. They ran to him, and there lay Mildrid! She was lying with her head on her arm, her face half buried in the heather. They stepped up gently; the dog licked her hands and cheek, and she stretched herself and changed her position, but slept on.
And if Beret reached home before her, father and mother would get a wrong idea of everything! Off Mildrid went, down the road that led to the valley. She walked unconsciously faster and faster, carried away by ever-increasing excitement; till her head began to turn and her breathing to get oppressed. She had to sit down for a rest.
From time to time one or the other whispered: "He's looking back!" When he was out of sight Mildrid turned round to Inga and said: "Don't ask me anything. I can't tell you about it!" She held her tight for a second, and then they walked towards the soeter-house. Mildrid remembered now how she had left all her work undone. Inga helped her with it. They spoke very little, and only about the work.
She was delighted at the thought of this, especially as her friend Inga was to be at the next soeter. At last her longing for the time to come grew so strong that she had no peace at home, and Beret, who was to accompany her, grew restless too. When they got settled in the soeter Beret was quite absorbed in the new, strange life, but Mildrid was still restless.
When they got so near that he thought she must now go on alone, he whistled softly to the dog, and she took this as the sign that they must part. She stopped and looked utterly unhappy and forlorn; he whispered to her: "I'll be praying for you here, Mildrid and I'll come when you need me." She gave him a kind of distracted look of thanks; she was really unable either to think or to see clearly.
Hans helped Mildrid and the boys with the morning work. By the time they had done it all and were ready to sit down to breakfast, Beret was up and ready too. Every time Hans looked at her she turned red, and when Mildrid after breakfast stood playing with his watch chain while she spoke to him, Beret hurried out, and was hardly to be found when it was time for the two to go.
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.
"Yes," he said, in answer to her unspoken question "yes, it is true; Tingvold is a fine place; it would be hard to find its equal." He smiled and bent down to her. "But I care more for you, Mildrid, than for Tingvold; and perhaps you care more for me than for Tingvold?" When he took it this way she could say no more. He looked so happy too; he sat down, and she beside him.
After this she seemed to revive; she asked Beret where she had been, and Beret told that she had gone to fetch Hans, and he told all the rest. Mildrid ate and listened, and yielded gradually once again to the old fascination. She laughed when Hans told her how the dog had found her, and had licked her face without wakening her.
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