"Truly the mirror _is_ a false flatterer," answered Margaretha; "it shows us but the fair outside and the smooth skin, but hides the skeleton and the image of death within us. The more pleasure we take in the mimic image it displays to us in our vanity, the more the eyes are blinded and the soul corrupted. Hadst thou heard the exaggerated compliments Sir Kagge paid _me_ ere he saw thee quite grown up, and found thou hadst a more attentive ear for his fair speeches and bold plans concerning our forfeited goods and rights, he would scarcely have been less the object of thy laughter and ridicule than that foolish Sir Palle." "Ah, how terribly unreasonable thou art, thou dear pious Margaretha!" interrupted Ulrica; "that fat stupid Sir Palle was made to be a laughing stock. I know well enough Kagge was once a little in love with thee, but I can readily forgive him, since he hath got over it so well.--Thou wert too in some sort my sister, and at the time I was almost a child.--Thou wouldst doubtless have had him sigh himself to death over thy coldness, but that was too much to ask of a handsome young knight. Should he then be deemed a faithless and inconstant lover because he was mistaken in us sisters, ere he could know our hearts and his own? How could he help that thou wert so cold and indifferent, and so insufferably pious? And was it then so unpardonable a sin that at last he found out that I was quite as fair--or perhaps rather more so?" "Dear deluded child!" sighed Margaretha, patting her sister's cheek, while she parted the fair curled locks from her brow, "must thou ever seek to trace every sentiment thou wouldst rightly understand to a vain and empty source? Kagge was a loyal and devoted squire to our father, it is true; he was a zealous sharer in that fearful deed of vengeance, the grounds of which thou now thinkest thou hast discovered; but were those grounds not false, and wert thou in truth that thou thinkest thyself to be, how canst thou give thy hand without shuddering to a man who was with the band in Finnerup-barn?" She paused, and folded her hands as if in silent prayer, as she knelt down on the prie-dieu, and rented her lovely head on the breviary.