When Karin was gone the Pastor's wife said:
'People wonder that you want to leave us.'
Ingrid was silent.
'They say that when Hede began to improve perhaps you fell in love with him.'
'Oh no! Not after he had begun to improve,' Ingrid said, feeling almost inclined to laugh.
'In any case, he is not the sort of person one could marry,' said her adopted mother. 'Father and I have been speaking about it, and we think it is best that you should remain with us.'
'It is very good of you that you want to keep me,' Ingrid said. And she was touched that now they wanted to be so kind to her.
They did not believe her, however obedient she was. She could not understand what little bird it was that told them about her longing. Now her adopted mother had told her that she must not go back to Munkhyttan. But even then she could not leave the matter alone.
'If they really wanted you,' she said, 'they would write for you.'
Ingrid again felt inclined to laugh. That would be the strangest thing of all, should there be a letter from the enchanted castle. She would like to know if her adopted mother thought that the King of the Mountain wrote for the maiden who had been swallowed by the mountain to come back when she had gone to see her mother?