Then old Agnete was beside herself with anxiety. 'You are a coward, you silly old thing,' she said. 'Both the fire and the lights, which cost so much, are burning out. Shall it all have been done in vain because you are such a miserable coward?' And when she had said this she got out of bed again, crying from fear, with chattering teeth, and shivering all over; but into the other room she went, and the door she opened. Again she lay and waited. Now she was no longer frightened that they should come. She was only afraid lest she had scared them away, and that they dared not come back. And as she lay there in the darkness she began to call just as she used to do in her young days when she was tending the sheep. 'My little white lambs, my lambs in the mountains, come, come! Come down from rift and precipice, my little white lambs!' Then it seemed as if a cold wind from the mountain came rushing into the room. She heard neither step nor sob, only gusts of wind that came rushing along the walls of the hut into the room. And it sounded as if someone were continually saying: 'Hush, hush! Don't frighten her! don't frighten her! don't frighten her!' She had a feeling as if the outside room was so overcrowded that they were being crushed against the walls, and that the walls were giving way. Sometimes it seemed as if they would lift the roof in order to gain more room. But the whole time there were whispers: 'Hush, hush! Don't frighten her! don't frighten her!' Then old Agnete felt happy and peaceful. She folded her hands and fell asleep. In the morning it seemed as if the whole had been a dream. Everything looked as usual in the outer room; the fire had burnt out, and so had the candles. There was not a vestige of tallow left in the candlesticks. As long as old Agnete lived she continued to do this. She spun and worked so that she could keep her fire burning every night. And she was happy because someone needed her. Then one Sunday she was not in her usual seat in the church. Two peasants went up to her hut to see if there was anything the matter. She was already dead, and they carried her body down to the village to bury it. When, the following Sunday, her funeral took place, just before Mass, there were but few who followed, neither did one see grief on any face. But suddenly, just as the coffin was being lowered into the grave, a tall, stern monk came into the churchyard, and he stood still and pointed to the snow-clad mountains. Then they saw the whole mountain-ridge shining in a red light as if lighted with joy, and round it wound a procession of small yellow flames, looking like burning candles. And these flames numbered as many as the candles which old Agnete had burned for the doomed. Then people said: 'Praise the Lord! She whom no one mourns here below has all the same found friends in the solitude above.' _From a Swedish_ HOMESTEAD IV _The Fisherman's_ RING _The Fisherman's_ RING