One Thursday evening, in Fru Rendalen's room, Tom as was going to read a new play to them. Tora Holm, who chanced to be near Milla, looked at her new black dress, which was a different one from that she wore in the schoolroom. Without touching the dress she said, showing with her fingers what she meant, the "trimming ought to have gone so, not so, and had better have been narrower." She did not wait for an answer, but walked farther on and sat down. The day after, before morning prayers began, Milla came up to her and thanked her; she had tried it, and found that Tora was right. There was no time for more, but during the first "recreation" they involuntarily sought each other out. "How could you see that at once?" asked Milla. "I tried it the other day on a doll," answered Tora. "On a doll?" asked Milla with a slight blush. Tora felt that she ought not to have let this out; she was always doubtful about what she ought to do. What a delicate instinct Milla Engel must have, to blush on her account! "So you dress dolls, do you?" said Milla, smiling, as she passed her the next day. Tora protested; it really was not clear what she protested, whether it were that she had one or two dolls, or that it was her sisters who had them, or that even married women often have dolls, so that there could be nothing odd in that, or else that she quite saw how unbecoming it was, since every age ought to suit with its.... She said all this, and a great deal more, in her Bergen sing-song, and Milla smiled. "Won't you come in and see me this afternoon? We are back from the country now." Tora had not refused before Milla had said good-bye, but afterwards she felt dreadfully embarrassed about it. Nevertheless at six o'clock she was there. Tora had a great wish to get up in the world--she would not be chained to a home such as hers was, to such a fate as threatened her. Consul Engel's house was almost the only one in the town where the door was kept closed all day. When one rang, either a man-servant or a maid opened the door, and one entered a house where there was Brussels carpet in the passages and on the stairs, as well as in the rooms, and where, to begin with, one found oneself between two mirrors where one could see oneself from head to foot. Tora was shown upstairs. "Fröken Engel's" room was there. She was heartily welcomed. The rooms were those which Fru Engel had occupied during the last years of her life; she had very rarely left them. She had died here, and it was for that reason that the family had gone so late into the country this year, and had only just returned to the house.