In the Österhaninge church the dead were celebrating midnight mass. One of them climbed up to the bell-tower and rang in Christmas; another went about and lighted the Christmas candles, and a third began with bony fingers to play the organ. Through the open doors others came swarming in out of the night and their graves to the bright, glowing House of the Lord. Just as they had been in life they came, only a little paler. They opened the pew doors with rattling keys and chatted and whispered as they walked up the aisle.
“They are the candles she has given the poor that are now shining in God’s house.”
“We lie warm in our graves as long as she gives clothes and wood to the poor.”
“She has spoken so many noble words that have opened the hearts of men; those words are the keys of our pews.
“She has thought beautiful thoughts of God’s love. Those thoughts raise us from our graves.”
So they whispered and murmured before they sat down in the pews and bent their pale foreheads in prayer in their shrunken hands.
At Årsta some one came into Mamsell Fredrika’s room and laid her hand gently on the sleeper’s arm.
“Up, my Fredrika! It is time to go to the early mass.”
Old Mamsell Fredrika opened her eyes and saw Agathe, her beloved sister who was dead, standing by the bed with a candle in her hand. She recognized her, for she looked just as she had done on earth. Mamsell Fredrika was not afraid; she rejoiced only at seeing her loved one, at whose side she longed to sleep the everlasting sleep.