492 ANNE LISBETH.

the journey hau cost money too, though the pleasure she had de-
rived from it was not great. Still she said not a word about this.
She would not relieve her heart by telling the labourer’s wife
about it, lest the latter should think she did not enjoy her former
position at the castle. Then the raven screamed again, and flew
past over her once more.

“The black wretch!” said Anne Lisbeth; “he’ll end by
frightening me to-day.”

She had brought coffee and chicory with her, for she thought
it would be a charity towards the poor woman to give them to
her to boil a cup of coffee, and then she herself would take a cup
too. The woman prepared the coffee, and in the meantime Anne
Lisbeth sat down upon a chair and fell asleep. There she
dreamed of something she had never dreamed before : singularly
enough, she dreamed of her own child that had wept and
hungered there in the labourer’s hut, had been hustled about in
heat and in cold, and was now lying in the depths of the sea,
Heaven knows where. She dreamed she was sitting in the hut,
where the woman was busy preparing the coffee—she could smell
the roasting coffee-beans. But suddenly it seemed to her that
there stood on the threshold a beautiful young form, as beautiful
as the count’s child ; and this apparition said to her,

“The world is passing away! Hold fast to me, for you are
my mother after all. You have an angel in heaven. Hold me
fast!”

And the child-angel stretched out its hand to her ; and there
was a terrible crash, for the world was going to pieces, and the
angel was raising himself above the earth, and holding her by the
sleeve so tightly, it seemed to her, that she was lifted up from the
ground ; but, on the other hand, something heavy hung at her feet
and dragged her down, and it seemed to her that hundreds of
women clung to her, and cried, .

“Tf thou art to be saved, we must be saved too! Hold fast!
hold fast !”

And then they all hung on to her; but there were too many of
them, and—vitsch / ratsch /—the sleeve tore, and Anne Lisbeth
fell down in horror, and—awoke. And, indeed, she was on the
point of falling over, with the chair on which she sat: she was so
startled and alarmed that she could not recollect what it was she
had dreamed, but she remembered that it had been something
dreadful.

The coffee was taken, and they had a chat together ; and then
Anne Lisbeth went away towards the little town where she was
to meet the carrier, and to drive back with him to her own home.
But when she came to speak to him, he said he should not be
ready to start before the evening of the next day. She began to
think about the expense and the length of the way, and when she
considered that the route by the sea-shore was shorter bv two