The young countess will ever afterwards remember her, as she walked there. She sees her often in her dreams, and wakes with eyes full of tears and a moan on her lips. The old woman is so pitifully changed, her hair is so thin, and loose ends stick out from the narrow braid. Her face is relaxed and sunken, her dress is disordered and ragged. But with it all she has so much still of her lofty bearing that she inspires not only sympathy, but also respect. But what the countess remembered most distinctly were her eyes, sunken, turned inward, not yet deprived of all the light of reason, but almost ready to be extinguished, and with a spark of wildness lurking in their depths, so that one had to shudder and fear to have the old woman in the next moment upon one, with teeth ready to bite, fingers to tear. They have been there quite a while when the major’s wife suddenly stops before the young woman and looks at her with a stern glance. The countess takes a step backwards and seizes Madame Scharling’s arm. The features of the major’s wife have life and expression, her eyes look out into the world with full intelligence. “Oh, no; oh, no,” she says and smiles; “as yet it is not so bad, my dear young lady.” She asks them to sit down, and sits down herself. She has an air of old-time stateliness, known since days of feasting at Ekeby and at the royal balls at the governor’s house at Karlstad. They forget the rags and the prison and only see the proudest and richest woman in Värmland. “My dear countess,” she says, “what possessed you to leave the dance to visit a lonely old woman? You must be very good.” Countess Elizabeth cannot answer. Her voice is choking with emotion. Madame Scharling answers for her, that she had not been able to dance for thinking of the major’s wife. “Dear Madame Scharling,” answers the major’s wife, “has it gone so far with me that I disturb the young people in their pleasure? You must not weep for me, my dear young countess,” she continued. “I am a wicked old woman, who deserves all I get. You do not think it right to strike one’s mother?” “No, but—” The major’s wife interrupts her and strokes the curly, light hair back from her forehead. “Child, child,” she says, “how could you marry that stupid Henrik Dohna?” “But I love him.” “I see how it is, I see how it is,” says the major’s wife. “A kind child and nothing more; weeps with those in sorrow, and laughs with those who are glad. And obliged to say ‘yes’ to the first man who says, ‘I love you.’ Yes, of course. Go back now and dance, my dear young countess. Dance and be happy! There is nothing bad in you.” “But I want to do something for you.” “Child,” says the major’s wife, solemnly, “an old woman lived at Ekeby who held the winds of heaven prisoners. Now she is caught and the winds are free. Is it strange that a storm goes over the land?