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Updated: May 28, 2025
Mildrid felt at table that her mother looked at her whenever Hans smiled. He had one of those serious faces that grow very pleasant when they smile. One or two such things Mildrid added together in her mind, and brought them to the sum she wanted to arrive at.
When Mildrid and Inga walked about in the fields, whispering and laughing, with their arms round each other, as girls love to go, poor Beret would throw herself down and cry with jealousy. The time came on for Mildrid to be confirmed; she made acquaintance with other young people of her own age, and some of them began to come up to Tingvold on Sundays.
The sun found them still entranced by this wonderful tale Mildrid lying down or resting on one elbow and talking, Beret kneeling beside her, her mouth half open, her eyes sparkling, from time to time giving a little cry of delight.
She rose to her feet, with a new light in her eyes. She would do what was right. Before Hans stood there again, her parents should know all. "That's it!" she said, aloud, as if some one were there, and then hurried down to the soeter to tell Beret. But Beret was nowhere to be seen. "Beret! Beret!" shouted Mildrid, but only the echoes gave answer.
Then Hans came slowly forward, "I thought you knew me," he said quietly; "I am Hans Haugen." When she heard his voice, Mildrid lifted her head. How good and true he looked as he stood there! He held out his hand; she went forward and took it, and looked at her friend with a flush of mingled shame and joy.
She got up, went out, and sat down where she had sat so long yesterday. All her life Mildrid had been accustomed to take herself to account for her behaviour; circumstances had obliged her to walk carefully. Now, thinking over what had happened these last two days, it struck her forcibly that she had behaved without tact, without thought, almost without modesty.
"Do you mean her to go home with you?" the father asked incredulously, almost ironically. "Yes," said Hans; "it is not the farm that I am coming after." He reddened, and so did Mildrid. If the farm had sunk into the ground the parents could not have been more astonished than they were at hearing it thus despised, and Mildrid's silence showed that she agreed with Hans.
She pretended to be asleep when Mildrid came at last, and Mildrid moved softly, so softly; but her sister heard her sobbing, and when she had got into bed she heard her say her usual evening prayer so sadly, heard her whisper: "O God, help me, help me!" It made Beret so unhappy that she could not get to sleep even now.
The sisters lay for a little with their arms round each other; then Beret sat up again; she wanted to look into her sister's face in the light of the summer night, that was gradually taking a tinge of red from the coming dawn. Then she burst out with: "Mildrid, how handsome he is! How did he come? How did you see him first? What did he say? Do tell me about it!"
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 you're mistress of your own actions?"
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