When all was over, Ragna accompanied her aunt to Christiania. She was given a comfortable room on the first floor and soon settled into the pleasant regularity of the household. It was very quiet--there could be no entertaining until the period of mourning should be over--but intimate friends often came in the afternoon and evening, and very pleasant circles formed about the cheerful lamp. Fru Bjork was a frequent visitor and made much of Ragna. The girl had taken her fancy when they had journeyed to Paris together and moreover she was convinced that the friendship of a serious-minded girl like Ragna was excellent for Astrid. The girls kept up a lively correspondence and in a few months Astrid would be coming home. Ragna looked forward to her coming with some impatience; though they had actually but little in common, there was at least the mutual experience of school-life, and since Ragna's awakening experience, much that had been incomprehensible to her in Astrid's nature now became clear. "She knew more than I did about things--and I was proud of my ignorance," she reflected. She was as yet unable to realize the difference between Astrid's shallow feminine coquetry and her own awakening consciousness of womanhood. Fru Boyesen and Fru Bjork had been schoolmates and although differing as to character, were excellent friends, owing to the ties of life-long association and a common point-of-view in social matters. Each of the ladies entertained a tolerant pity for the foibles of the other, which is perhaps the most comfortable _modus vivendi_ to be found.