"But I don't think I should ever have had any serious trouble with Petra in the first place if Sophie hadn't come home--you know, the schoolmistress in the town. She's always found plenty to criticize in me, so I never liked her very much, I must admit. But when she came here, she was very arrogant toward me, and lorded it over me, showing off all her knowledge. I was busy trying to learn what I needed to know for the life up here, and then she came along and made me look small, talking about the Seven Years' War all the time. She was terribly learned about the Seven Years' War, because that's what she had in her examination. And our way of talking wasn't elegant enough for her; Nikolai used rough country expressions sometimes, and she didn't like that. But Nikolai speaks quite well enough, and I can't see what that fool of a sister of his has got to put on airs for! And on top of that she came home to stay--for six months, anyhow. She'd been engaged, so then she had to take a six months' holiday. The baby's with Petra, with his grandmother, so he's well taken care of. It's a boy, too, but he's hardly got any hair; mine has plenty of hair. Well, in a way, of course, it's a pity about Sophie, because she'd used up her legacy and her youth studying to be a schoolmistress, and then she comes home like that. But she really was insufferable, thinking she was a lot better than I because she hadn't been discharged, like me. So I asked her to leave. And then they both left, Sophie and her mother. Anyhow, her mother and I are quite reconciled. "But you mustn't think we've had any help from her to buy the horse. Nothing of the kind! We borrowed the money from the bank. But we'll manage, because it's our only debt. Nikolai has made all the furniture in here himself, the table and china cupboard and everything; we haven't bought a thing. He's dug up the new field himself, too. And we'll be getting more cattle; you ought to see what a handsome heifer we've got.... "Even the food wasn't good enough for Sophie. Tins saved such a lot of trouble, she said; we ought to buy tinned food. It was enough to make you sick to listen to her. I was just beginning to knit, too; I'd got one of my neighbors to teach me, and I was knitting stockings for myself. But of course Lady Sophie--well, she bought her stockings in the city. Oh, she was charming. 'Get out!' I said to her. So they left." Nikolai entered the room. "Did you want me?" "No--oh, yes, I wanted you to come upstairs with me. I need something to hang things on in front of the fire, a clotheshorse--come along--" I stayed behind, thinking: "If only it lasts, if only it lasts! She's so overwrought; living on her nerves. And pregnant again. But what splendid resolution she shows, and how she's matured in these two years! But it has cost her a great deal, too. "Good luck to you, Ingeborg, good luck!"