The labourers' words had fallen like heavy blows on Frida's heart. She felt how little love and respect they had for her husband, and the knowledge of the difficulty of her position made it hard for her to speak. After a sharp inward struggle for composure, she said: "Hush, my men! When the squire comes home he must decide whether he will grant your request. Go home quietly and don't come back to the house in such numbers again. I will tell the squire what you want, and I believe I can promise you that there will be a change in the farming arrangements at midsummer--one way or another," she added with a sigh. Then she was silent for an instant, as though to swallow a lump in her throat. "Yes," she continued, "wait patiently till midsummer, and then there shall be a change."--"That's all right!"--"That's all we want!"--"And we're very grateful to you."--"Good-night, Madam."--And they all went away. Frida returned to her room. It had begun to thunder and lighten, and the wind which was blustering through the yard drove sand and straw pattering against the window. "Yes," she said to herself, "midsummer will decide it. I hav'n't promised too much, for there must be a change then. But what will it be?" and involuntarily she thought of the picture David had so mercilessly drawn of her future life. She saw herself condemned to spend the rest of her days in a hired house in a small country town with her husband and child, leading an idle useless life without hope of remedy, and hearing people whisper that their fate might have been so different. She saw her husband get up in the morning and go out into the town, come home to dinner, spend the afternoon lounging on the sofa, then go out again, and come home to bed. He had always hitherto frittered away the time God had given him to work, and he would continue to waste his days in idleness. She saw herself worn out and wearied with household cares, comfortless and friendless, fighting the battle of life alone; she saw herself dying and her child standing by her bed. Her child! Her poor child! The penniless daughter of a nobleman! There are few things that are a greater curse than the possession of rank without the means of keeping it up.--A man can get on pretty well, for he can go into the army; but a girl? Even if God has endowed her with the loveliness of an angel, and her parents have done the best they can for their darling, a gentleman says: "She is poor, so I cannot marry her," and a man of the middle-class says: "She has grand notions, so I cannot marry her."--Frida looked sadly at her child, who was sleeping calmly through the storm that was raging out of doors, and that which was raging in her mother's breast.