The Dalar man happened to look through the window. A long row of carts and carriages was coming up the avenue and into the yard. Ah, indeed! then he was not going to stay. He did not like that at all. Ingrid crouched down at the bottom of the pack. She said not another word, but only sobbed. The flaps and the lids were fastened, and she was again lifted on to his back and carried away. Those who were coming to the funeral feast laughed at the Goat, who hastened away, curtsying and curtsying to every horse he met. V Anna Stina was an old woman who lived in the depths of the forest. She gave a helping hand at the Parsonage now and then, and always managed opportunely to come down the hillside when they were baking or washing. She was a nice, clever old woman, and she and Ingrid were good friends. As soon as the young girl was able to collect her thoughts, she made up her mind to take refuge with her. 'Listen,' she said to the Dalar man. 'When you get onto the highroad, turn into the forest; then go straight on until you come to a gate; there you must turn to the left; then you must go straight on until you come to the large gravel-pit. From there you can see a house: take me there, and I will play to you.' The short and harsh manner in which she gave her orders jarred upon her ears, but she was obliged to speak in this way in order to be obeyed; it was the only chance she had. What right had she to order another person about--she who had not even the right to be alive? After all this she would never again be able to feel as if she had any right to live. This was the most dreadful part of all that had happened to her: that she could have lived in the Parsonage for six years, and not even been able to make herself so much loved that they wished to keep her alive. And those whom no one loves have no right to live. She could not exactly say how she knew it was so, but it was as clear as daylight. She knew it from the feeling that the same moment she heard that they did not care about her an iron hand seemed to have crushed her heart as if to make it stop. Yes, it was life itself that had been closed for her. And the same moment she had come back from death, and felt the delight of being alive burn brightly and strongly within her, just at that moment the one thing that gave her the right of existing had been torn from her. This was worse than sentence of death. It was much more cruel than an ordinary sentence of death. She knew what it was like. It was like felling a tree--not in the usual manner, when the trunk is cut through, but by cutting its roots and leaving it standing in the ground to die by itself. There the tree stands, and cannot understand why it no longer gets nourishment and support. It struggles and strives to live, but the leaves get smaller and smaller, it sends forth no fresh shoots, the bark falls off, and it must die, because it is severed from the spring of life. Thus it is it must die.