“And there’s one thing we must be all agreed about,” continued Fru Thora, “and that is that a better head of a family and master than Norby is not to be found in the district. Where will you find any one so good to his old servants and men?”
The schoolmaster thought it over, and the warm appreciation of Norby’s goodness to his farm-servants touched him and overcame his last scruples.
“Well, I’m quite willing to join,” he said. “But who is to make the speech?” he thought to himself.
“Yes,” said Fru Thora, taking another sip of wine. “But you aren’t going to be let off so easily. You will have to make the speech. No one can do it so well.”
“I?” said Heggen, his brow flushing; but he finally agreed. If a few words were to be said in honour of Fru Norby, perhaps Fru Thora of Lidarende might attempt them.
When she left, she felt relieved and happy at having succeeded here. Now the rest would be easily managed; and she hastened down the avenue as briskly as a young girl, while the last rays of the sun fell through the leaves upon her light dress.
With no suspicion of Fru Thora’s plan, Knut Norby was sitting that day hard at work with his accounts. He had at last fallen again into his old ways. He had wasted so much time on all that nonsense with Wangen that there must be an end of this; he must set to work and make up for what he had lost.
His hair had grown a little greyer during the last few months, and he was pale and tired; it had been rather trying, the way things had gone on.
When he had finished and gone out on to the steps with his pipe in his mouth, Ingeborg came up to him, and told him, with tears in his eyes, that the old dairymaid was dead.