“My child, my child, why did you kiss Gösta Berling?” “But father must have seen that I do not like him for that. It was in fun. Does he think that I will marry Gösta?” “Go to the gardener’s house, Marianne, and beg that you pass the night there. Your father is drunk. He will not listen to reason. He has kept me a prisoner up there. I crept out when I thought he was asleep. He will kill me, if you come in.” “Mother, mother, shall I go to strangers when I have a home? Are you as hard as father? How can you allow me to be shut out? I will lay myself in the drift out here, if you do not let me in.” Then Marianne’s mother laid her hand on the lock to open the door, but at the same moment a heavy step was heard on the stair, and a harsh voice called her. Marianne listened: her mother hurried away, the harsh voice cursed her and then— Marianne heard something terrible,—she could hear every sound in the silent house. She heard the thud of a blow, a blow with a stick or a box on the ear; then she heard a faint noise, and then again a blow. He struck her mother, the terrible brutal Melchior Sinclair struck his wife! And in pale horror Marianne threw herself down on the threshold and writhed in anguish. Now she wept, and her tears froze to ice on the threshold of her home. Grace! pity! Open, open, that she might bend her own back under the blows! Oh, that he could strike her mother, strike her, because she did not wish to see her daughter the next day lying dead in the snow-drift, because she had wished to comfort her child! Great humiliation had come to Marianne that night. She had fancied herself a queen, and she lay there little better than a whipped slave. But she rose up in cold rage. Once more she struck the door with her bloody hand and called:— “Hear what I say to you,—you, who beat my mother. You shall weep for this, Melchior Sinclair, weep!” Then she went and laid herself to rest in the snow-drift. She threw off her cloak and lay in her black velvet dress, easily distinguishable against the white snow. She lay and thought how her father would come out the next day on his early morning tour of inspection and find her there. She only hoped that he himself might find her. * * * * * O Death, pale friend, is it as true as it is consoling, that I never can escape meeting you? Even to me, the lowliest of earth’s workers, will you come, to loosen the torn leather shoes from my feet, to take the spade and the barrow from my hand, to take the working-dress from my body. With gentle force you lay me out on a lace-trimmed bed; you adorn me with draped linen sheets. My feet need no more shoes, my hands are clad in snow-white gloves, which no more work shall soil. Consecrated by thee to the sweetness of rest, I shall sleep a sleep of a thousand years. Oh deliverer! The lowliest of earth’s laborers am I, and I dream with a thrill of pleasure of the hour when I shall be received into your kingdom.