She soon saw it was best not to speak about her going away. There were so many difficulties in the way whenever she spoke about it. It was not enough that the roads were still in the same bad condition; they surrounded her with walls and ramparts and moats. She would knit and weave, and plant out in the forcing-frames. And surely she would not go away until after the large birthday party at the Dean's? And she could not think of leaving till after Karin Landberg's wedding. There was nothing for her to do but to lift her hands in supplication to the spring, and beg it to make haste with its work, beg for sunshine and warmth, beg the gentle sun to do its very best for the great border forest, send small piercing rays between the fir-trees, and melt the snow beneath them. Dear, dear sun! It did not matter if the snow were not melted in the valley, if only the snow would vanish from the mountains, if only the forest paths became passable, if only the Säter girls were able to go to their huts, if only the bogs became dry, if only it became possible to go by the forest road, which was half the distance of the highroad. Ingrid knew one who would not wait for carriage, or ask for money to drive, if only the road through the forest became passable. She knew one who would leave the Parsonage some moonlight night, and who would do it without asking a single person's permission. She thought she had waited for the spring before. That everybody does. But now Ingrid knew that she had never before longed for it. Oh no, no! She had never before known what it was to long. Before she had waited for green leaves and anemones, and the song of the thrush and the cuckoo. But that was childishness--nothing more. They did not long for the spring who only thought of what was beautiful. One should take the first bit of earth that peeped through the snow, and kiss it. One should pluck the first coarse leaf of the nettle simply to burn into one that now the spring had come. Everybody was very good to her. But although they did not say anything, they seemed to think that she was always thinking of leaving them. 'I can't understand why you want to go back to that place and look after that crazy fellow,' said Karin Landberg one day. It seemed as if she could read Ingrid's thoughts. 'Oh, she has given up thinking of that now,' said the Pastor's wife, before the young girl had time to answer. When Karin was gone the Pastor's wife said: 'People wonder that you want to leave us.' Ingrid was silent. 'They say that when Hede began to improve perhaps you fell in love with him.' 'Oh no! Not after he had begun to improve,' Ingrid said, feeling almost inclined to laugh. 'In any case, he is not the sort of person one could marry,' said her adopted mother. 'Father and I have been speaking about it, and we think it is best that you should remain with us.'