Oline did not leave Sellanraa without taking Inger aside for more whisperings of Barbro. "Not a word I've said--but I could see the signs of it! And now I suppose she'll be wife and all on the farm there. Ay, there's some folk are born to great things, for all they may be small as the sands of the sea in their beginnings. And who'd have ever thought it of that girl Barbro! Axel, yes, never doubt but he's a toiling sort and getting on, and great fine lands and means and all like you've got here--'tis more than we know of over on our side the hills, as you know's a true word, Inger, being born and come of the place yourself. Barbro, she'd a trifle of wool in a chest; 'twas naught but winter wool, and I wasn't asking and she never offered me. We said but _Goddag_ and _Farvel_, for all that I'd known her from she was a toddling child all that time I was here at Sellanraa by reason of you being away and learning knowledge at the Institute...." "There's Rebecca crying," said Inger, breaking in on Oline. But she gave her a handful of wool. Then a great thanksgiving speech from Oline: ay, wasn't it just as she had said to Barbro herself of Inger, and how there was not her like to be found for giving to folk; ay, she'd give till she was bare, and give her fingers to the bone, and never complain. Ay, go in and see to the sweet angel, and never was there a child in the world so like her mother as Rebecca--no. Did Inger remember how she'd said one day as she'd never have children again? Ah, now she could see! No, better give ear to them as were grown old and had borne children of their own, for who should fathom the Lord His ways, said Oline. And with that she padded off after Eleseus up through the forest, shrunken with age, grey and abject, and for ever nosing after things, imperishable. Going to old Sivert now, to let him know how she, Oline, had managed to persuade Eleseus to come.