The young people were silent at first, but then she began the conversation, audaciousness itself. “Have you heard what the minister read out in church to-day?” “Did he say that you were the prettiest girl between the Löfven and the Klar River?” “How stupid you are! but every one knows that. He called the banns for me and old Dahlberg.” “Never would I have let you sit in my sledge nor sat here myself, if I had known that. Never would I have wished to drive you at all.” And the proud heiress answered:— “I could have got there well enough without you, Gösta Berling.” “It is a pity for you, Anna,” said Gösta, thoughtfully, “that your father and mother are not alive. You are your own mistress, and no one can hold you to account.” “It is a much greater pity that you had not said that before, so that I might have driven with some one else.” “The minister’s wife thinks as I do, that you need some one to take your father’s place; else she had never put you to pull in harness with such an old nag.” “It is not she who has decided it.” “Ah, Heaven preserve us!—have you yourself chosen such a fine man?” “He does not take me for my money.” “No, the old ones, they only run after blue eyes and red cheeks; and awfully nice they are, when they do that.” “Oh, Gösta, are you not ashamed?” “But remember that you are not to play with young men any longer. No more dancing and games. Your place is in the corner of the sofa—or perhaps you mean to play cribbage with old Dahlberg?” They were silent, till they drove up the steep hill to Borg. “Thanks for the drive! It will be long before I drive again with you, Gösta Berling.” “Thanks for the promise! I know many who will be sorry to-day they ever drove you to a party.” Little pleased was the haughty beauty when she entered the ball-room and looked over the guests gathered there. First of all she saw the little, bald Dahlberg beside the tall, slender, golden-haired Gösta Berling. She wished she could have driven them both out of the room. Her fiancé came to ask her to dance, but she received him with crushing astonishment. “Are you going to dance? You never do!” And the girls came to wish her joy. “Don’t give yourselves the trouble, girls. You don’t suppose that any one could be in love with old Dahlberg. But he is rich, and I am rich, therefore we go well together.” The old ladies went up to her, pressed her white hand, and spoke of life’s greatest happiness. “Congratulate the minister’s wife,” she said. “She is gladder about it than I.” But there stood Gösta Berling, the gay cavalier, greeted with joy for his cheerful smile and his pleasant words, which sifted gold-dust over life’s gray web. Never before had she seen him as he was that night. He was no outcast, no homeless jester; no, a king among men, a born king.