Then she doffed her dirty, undyed, wadmal gown, that smelt of the byre and of sweat, put on a dark-blue garment, and changed her tow-linen hood for a coif of fine white linen, which she smoothed down fairly round her head and neck. Her shaggy boots of skin she drew off, and put on silver-buckled shoes. Then she fell to setting her room in order—smoothed the pillows and the skins in the bed where Björn had lain that day, wiped the long-board clean, and laid the bench-cushions straight. When the dogs set up their warning barking, she was standing by the fireplace, stirring the supper-porridge. She heard horses in the yard, and the tread of men in the outer room; some one knocked on the door with a spear-butt. Lady Aashild lifted the pot from the fire, settled her dress about her, and, with the dogs at her side, went forward to the door and opened. Out in the moonlit yard were three young men holding four horses white with rime. A man that stood before her in the porch cried out joyfully: “Moster Aashild! come you yourself to open to us? Nay, then must I say _Ben trouvè_!” “Sister’s son, is it you indeed! Then the same say I to you! Go into the room, while I show your men the stable.” “Are you all alone on the farm?” asked Erlend. He followed her while she showed the men where to go. “Aye; Sir Björn and our man are gone into the hills with the sleigh—they are to see and bring home some fodder we have stacked up there,” said Lady Aashild. “And serving-woman I have none,” she said, laughing. A little while after, the four young men were sitting on the outer bench with their backs to the board, looking at the old lady, as, busily but quietly, she went about making ready their supper. She laid a cloth on the board, and set on it a lighted candle; then brought forth butter, cheese, a bear-ham and a high pile of thin slices of fine bread. She fetched ale and mead up from the cellar below the room, and then poured out the porridge into a dish of fine wood, and bade them sit in to the board and fall to. “’Tis but little for you young folk,” she said laughing. “I must boil another pot of porridge. To-morrow you shall fare better—but I shut up the kitchen-house, in the winter save when I bake or brew. We are few folks on the farm, and I begin to grow old, kinsman.” Erlend laughed and shook his head. He had marked that his men behaved before the old woman seemly and modestly as he had scarce ever seen them bear themselves before. “You are a strange woman, Moster. Mother was ten years younger than you, and she looked older when last we were in your house than you look to-day.” “Aye, Magnhild’s youth left her full early,” said Lady Aashild softly. “Where are you come from, now?” she asked after a while. “I have been for a season at a farmstead up north in Lesja,” said Erlend, “I had hired me lodging there. I know not if you can guess what errand has brought me to this countryside?”