“Now I know not, husband, if you are right in this matter. First must it be said that, as times are now many men round about us on the great estates have had to be content with less of power and honour than their fathers had before them. And you yourself best know that ’tis less easy now for a man to win riches either from land or from merchantry than it was in the old world—” “I know, I know,” broke in Lavrans impatiently. “All the more does it behoove a man to guide warily the goods that have come down to him—” But his wife went on: “And this, too, is to be said: I see not that Kristin can be an uneven match for Erlend. In Sweden your kin sit among the best, and your father, and his father before him bore the name of knights in this land of Norway. My forefathers were Barons of shires, son after father, many hundred years, down to Ivar the Old; my father and my father’s father were Wardens. True it is, neither you nor Trond have held titles or lands under the Crown. But, as for that, methinks it may be said that ’tis no otherwise with Erlend Nikulaussön than with you.” “’Tis not the same,” said Lavrans hotly. “Power and the knightly name lay ready to Erlend’s hand, and he turned his back on them to go a-whoring. But now I see you are against me too. Maybe you think, like Aasmund and Trond, ’tis an honour for me that these great folks would have my daughter for one of their kinsmen—” Ragnfrid spoke in some heat: “I have told you, I see not that you need be so overnice as to fear that Erlend’s kinsmen should think they stoop in these dealings. But see you not what all things betoken—a gentle and a biddable child to find courage to set herself up against us and turn away Simon Darre—have you not seen that Kristin is nowise herself since she came back from Oslo—see you not she goes around like one bewitched—Will you not understand, she loves this man so sorely, that, if you yield not, a great misfortune may befall?” “What mean you by that?” asked the father, looking up sharply. “Many a man greets his son-in-law and knows not of it,” said Ragnfrid. The man seemed to stiffen where he sat; his face grew slowly white: “You that are her mother!” he said hoarsely. “Have you—have you seen—such sure tokens—that you dare charge your own daughter—” “No, no,” said Ragnfrid quickly. “I meant it not as you think. But when things are thus, who can tell what has befallen, or what may befall? I have seen her heart; not one thought hath she left but her love for this man—’twere no marvel if one day she showed us that he is dearer to her than her honour—or her life.” Lavrans sprang up: