Ingrid felt herself again given back to life. She had the right to live, as there was one who loved her.
And this was why she entered the kitchen at Munkhyttan with a faint blush on her cheeks, and with radiant eyes, fragile, weak, and transparent, but sweet as a newly-opened rose.
She still went about as if in a dream, and did not know much about where she was; but what surprised her so much that it nearly awakened her was to see a new Anna Stina standing by the fireplace. She stood there, little and broad, with a large, square face, exactly like the other. But why was she so fine, with a white cap with strings tied in a large bow under her chin, and with a black bombazine dress? Ingrid's head was so confused, that it was some time before it occurred to her that this must be Miss Stafva.
She felt that Anna Stina looked uneasily at her, and she tried to pull herself together and say 'Good-day.' But the only thing her mind could grasp was the thought that he had come to her.
Inside the kitchen there was a small room, with blue-checked covering on the furniture. They were taken into that room, and Miss Stafva gave them coffee and something to eat.
Anna Stina at once began to talk about their errand. She spoke for a long time; said that she knew her sister stood so high in her ladyship's favour that she left it to her to engage the servants. Miss Stafva said nothing, but she gave a look at Ingrid as much as to say that it would hardly have been left with her if she had chosen servants like her.
Anna Stina praised Ingrid, and said she was a good girl. She had hitherto served in a parsonage, but now that she was grown up she wanted really to learn something, and that was why Anna Stina had brought her to one who could teach her more than any other person she knew.
Miss Stafva did not reply to this remark either. But her glance plainly showed that she was surprised that anyone who had had a situation in a parsonage had no clothes of her own, but was obliged to borrow old Anna Stina's.
Then old Anna Stina began to tell how she lived quite alone in the forest, deserted by all her relatives. And this young girl had come running up the hill many an evening and many an early morning to see her. She had therefore thought and hoped that she could now help her to get a good situation.
Miss Stafva said it was a pity that they had gone such a long way to find a place. If she were a clever girl, she could surely get a situation in some good family in their own neighbourhood.