"And I'm just one that's never studied at all, beyond the Bible," said she. "My head's not heavy with knowledge. Not all confused with doctrines of error. I am as an unwritten page; as the white scroll on which God Himself writes His own thoughts. And I was born far away in Lapland, and live in a little settlement, and every day I go to work at a box factory, and I'm all alone and poor, and neither husband nor child. And nobody asks whether I live or die, and nobody comes to see after me if I'm ill, and there's no one there at home that I can talk to about what's most of all to me. And I know well enough that people make fun of me behind my back, and I'm already getting shy of going about among people." A kindly old lady sitting opposite, who had entered into conversation with her at first, and got her to speak, now laid a hand on her knee, as if to calm her, but she went on, as if driven by an irresistible inner force. "And all my days Death has been after me like a ravening wolf. His strivings after me have been manifold. He tried to compass me about while I was yet in my mother's womb. He sent forth a madman to frighten my mother, and I was born into the world too early, and a weak and wretched thing at birth. And once he tried to drown me when I was bathing, and once, out in the forest, he let a tree fall on me, and once he sent a serpent to bite me in the foot when I was out picking berries, and once he threw me down from a scaffold on a building. And he's plagued me with sickness beyond counting." It was not only her opposite neighbour that listened to her now. A peasant and his wife, sitting next to her, followed her words with the greatest attention. The tone and the choice of words reminded them of mission meetings, and they put on an almost pious expression. "And in the days of my youth," went on the girl--she could not have been more than twenty-six or twenty-seven at the most--"I stretched forth my arms to God, and asked Him why He suffered Death to persecute me with sickness and wounds, but now, these last few years, I have ceased to ask. I know now that the Evil One strove to strike me down because it was God's purpose to speak through me; yes, out of my mouth God should set a barrier against the raging of the Enemy." She paused for breath, and looked round, but finding only kindly looks and attention among the rest, she went on again: "And I have wondered in myself why I should live so far away in the north, and why I should always walk the same little streets and never see anything of the glories of the world. Why have I been granted so little understanding to make my way and manage for myself, and why have I so little pleasure on that which pleases others? Why does the foreman at the factory never say a kindly word to me, however hard I work? Why should it be so hard for me to get milk, and why should I live in a little room where no one else would be?