"Mother dear, you mustn't be so frightened! Don't you know me?"
Katrina opened her eyes and regarded the daughter scrutinizingly. She was a sensible person, was Katrina, and of course she did not expect that one whom she had not seen in fifteen years should look exactly as she had looked when leaving home. Nevertheless, she was horrified at what she beheld.
The person standing before her appeared much older than her years; for she was only two and thirty. But it was not because Glory Goldie had turned gray at the temples and her forehead was covered with a mass of wrinkles that Katrina was shocked, but because she had grown ugly. She had acquired an unnatural leaden hue and there was something heavy and gross about her mouth. The whites of her eyes had become gray and bloodshot, and the skin under her eyes hung in sacks.
Katrina had sunk down on a chair. She sat with her hands tightly clasped round her knees to keep them from shaking. She was thinking of the radiant young girl of seventeen in the red dress; for thus had she lived in Katrina's memory up to the present moment. She wondered whether she could ever be happy over Glory Goldie's return.
"You should have written," she said. "You should at least have sent us a greeting, so that we could have known you were still in the land of the living."
"Yes, I know," said the daughter. Her voice, at least, had not failed her; it sounded as confident and cheery as of old. "I went wrong in the beginning—but perhaps you've heard about it?"
"Yes; that much we know," sighed Katrina.
"That was why I stopped writing," said Glory Goldie, with a little laugh. There was something strong and sturdy about the girl then, as formerly. She was not one of those who torture themselves with remorse and self-condemnation. "Don't think any more of that, mother," she added, as Katrina did not speak. "I've been doing real well lately. For a time I kept a restaurant and now, I'll have you know, I'm head stewardess on a steamer that runs between Malmö and Lübeck, and this fall I have fitted up a home for myself at Malmö. Sometimes I felt that I ought to write to you, but finding it rather hard to start in again, I decided to put it off until I was prepared to take you and father to live with me. Then, after I'd got everything fixed fine for you, I thought it would be ever so much nicer to come for you myself than to write."
"And you haven't heard anything about us?" asked Katrina. All that Glory Goldie had told her mother should have gladdened her, but instead it only made her feel the more depressed.
"No," replied the daughter, then added, as if in self-justification: "I knew, of course, that you'd find help if things got too bad." At the same time she noticed how Katrina's hands shook for all they were being held tightly clasped. She understood then that the old folks were worse off than she had supposed, and tried to explain her conduct. "I didn't care to send home small sums, as others do, but wanted to save until I had enough money to provide a good home for you."