When Jan was far enough away from the house not to be seen from the windows he noticed a woman in the road coming toward him.  Dusk had already fallen, but he soon saw it was the mistress herself—­not the new one, but the old and rightful mistress of Falla.  She had on a big shawl that came down to the hem of her skirt.  Jan had never seen her so wrapped up, and wondered if she was ill.  She had looked poorly of late.  In the spring, when her husband died, she had not a gray hair on her head, and now, half a year afterward, she had not a dark hair left.

The old mistress stopped and greeted Jan, after which the two stood and talked.  She said nothing that would indicate that she had come out expressly to see him, but he felt it to be so.  It flashed into his head that she wanted to speak with him about Glory Goldie, and he was rather miffed when she began to talk about something quite different.

“I wonder, Jan, if you remember the old owner of Falla, my father, who was master there before Eric came?”

“Why shouldn’t I remember him, when I was all of twelve at the time of his death?”

“He had a good son-in-law,” said the old mistress.

“He had that,” agreed Jan.

The old mistress was silent a moment, and sighed once or twice before she continued:  “I want to ask your advice about something, Jan.  You are not the sort that would go about tittle-tattling what I say.”

“No, I can hold my tongue.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed that this year.”

New hopes arose in Jan.  It would not be surprising, thought he, if Glory Goldie had turned to the old mistress of Falla and asked her to tell him and Katrina of the great thing that had come to her.  For the old seine-maker had been taken down with rheumatic fever shortly after their interrupted conversation, and for weeks he had been too ill to see him.  Now he was up and about again, but very feeble.  The worst of it was that after his illness his memory seemed to be gone.  He had waited for him to say something more about Glory Goldie’s letter, but as he had failed to do so, and could not even take a hint, he had asked him straight out.  And the old man had declared he had not received any letter.  To convince Jan he had pulled out the table drawer and thrown back the lid of his clothes-chest, to let him see for himself that there was no such letter.

Of course he had forgotten what he did with it, Jan concluded.  So, no wonder the little girl had turned to the mistress of Falla.  Pity she hadn’t done it in the first place!  Now that the old mistress was hesitating so long he felt certain in his own mind that he was right.  But when she again returned to the subject of her father, he was so surprised he could hardly follow her.  She said: 

“When father was nearing the end he summoned Eric of Falla to his bedside and thanked him for his loving care of a helpless old man in his declining years.  ‘Don’t think about that, Father,’ said Eric.  ’We’re glad to have you with us just as long as you care to stay.’  That’s what Eric said.  And he meant it, too!”