"'If we were all like her,' I said to the others, 'then God might well be pleased with us all.' "It was the Dean's daughter we were thinking of, and then we all turned and stood looking at her. "She had the loveliest soft brown hair, all curling at the temples and falling in soft waves over the brow and neck. A longish face, with thin cheeks and long eyelashes, and eyes like a deep well to look down in. And she seemed to be made somehow of finer stuff than the rest of us. Like some berries you can see through. She was rather tall, and walked with her head a little drooping to one side, and it seemed to us that suited her, with her looks and manner altogether." The listener bent forward suddenly, covering his eyes with his hand. The vision of a dearly loved face rose up before him. He saw it now as it had appeared to him that day at sea, when beauty after beauty passed before their eyes. So strangely young and questioning. "Sigrun was her name," said Lotta Hedman. "And it was an uncommon name, but that was not the only thing uncommon about her. "Just on that day, watching her as she stood there, in the sunlight outside the church, I understood why it was one could not help looking at her. "True, she was a human being like the rest of us. With eyes and nose and mouth as anyone else, and born in the Deanery at Stenbroträsk, and her parents ordinary people like everyone else's. But that could not deceive any with eyes to see. Sigrun was of another sort than ordinary people; she was from another world." The man, still sitting with his head resting on his hand, nodded involuntarily. That was the very word. From another world--a bird of passage that had lost its way, separated from its fellows, and somehow come among another flock not of its kind. "For there _are_ other worlds," said Lotta Hedman. "Many worlds besides the one we live in. And Sigrun was from one of them. But perhaps you cannot understand?" "Yes," said the man, "I understand. I have met someone myself once who was from another world. At least, I think I understand," he added, as if fearing he had spoken too confidently. "And I slipped away into a corner under the belfry," went on Lotta Hedman, covering her eyes. "I wanted to think over what this meant; that Sigrun was different from all the rest. "If she were from another world, then surely she must be able to see that I was one of the chosen, appointed one day to speak the words of God. And would she not want to speak to me herself? She who was better than all the rest, would she not be better able to judge and choose than they? "But I was not left alone with my thought for long. The others came up, all of them from our corner, that did not dare to go up to _her_; they came and gathered round me. "'Here's Lotta Hedman sitting crying, because Sigrun won't look at her,' said one. "'Of course she won't--Sigrun to look at one like you, indeed, such a sight!' said another, and tried to make me see it the same way.