“I have heard good report of you, and you look to be wise and well nurtured—sure I am you will give us no cause for miscontent. I have heard that you are plighted to this good and well-born man, Simon Andressön, whom I see here—it seems to us that ’twas wise counsel of your father and your husband to be, to grant you leave to live here awhile in the Virgin Mary’s house, that you may learn to obey and serve before you are called to rule and to command. Now would I have you lay to heart this counsel: that you learn to find joy in prayer and the worship of God, that you may use yourself in all your doings to remember your Creator, God’s gentle Mother, and all the Saints who have given us the best patterns of strength, uprightness, faithfulness and all the virtues you must show forth in guiding your people and your goods and nurturing your children. And you will learn in this house, too, to take good heed of time, for here every hour has its use and its task also. Many young maids and women love all too well to lie abed late of a morning, and sit long at table of an evening in idle talk—yet look not you as you were one of these. Yet may you learn much in the year you are here that may profit you both here on earth and in our heavenly home.” Kristin curtsied and kissed her hand. After that Lady Groa bade Kristin go with a monstrously fat old nun, whom she called Sister Potentia, over to the nuns’ refectory. The men and Gyrid she asked to dine with her in another house. The refectory was a great and fair room with a stone floor and pointed windows with glass panes. There was a doorway into another room, where, Kristin could see, there must be glass windows too, for the sun shone in. The Sisters were already seated at the table waiting for their food—the elder nuns upon a cushioned stone-bench along the wall under the windows; the younger Sisters and the bareheaded maidens in light-hued wadmal dresses sat upon a wooden bench on the outer side of the board. In the next room a board was laid too; this was for the commoners and the lay-servants; there were a few old men amongst them. These folk did not wear the convent habit, but were none the less clad soberly in dark raiment. Sister Potentia showed Kristin to a seat on the outer bench, but went and placed herself near to the Abbess’ high-seat at the end of the board—the high-seat was empty to-day. All rose, both in this room and in the side room, while the Sisters said grace. After that a fair, young nun went and stood at a lectern placed in the doorway between the two chambers. And while the lay-sisters in the greater room, and two of the youngest nuns in the side room, bore in food and drink, the nun read in a high and sweet voice, and without stopping or tripping at a single word, the story of St. Theodora and St. Didymus.