"Goodness me!" she cried. "Is it the child?"
"Yes, it is the child, mother," said Magnus, and out of a mountain of rugs and shawls came little Elin, now in her fifth year, and she was dropped into Anna's arms.
"The darling! What a great girl she has grown! So she has come to see her gran'ma?"
"Yes, gran'ma," said the child.
"And here are her clothes--all of them," said Magnus, swinging a satchel off his shoulders.
"Then she has come for good! And she is going to live with her gran'ma and Uncle Magnus!"
"And Silvertop and the sheeps and the doggies," said the little one.
"So she shall, bless her! Jon Vidalin, see to the master's pony. Eric, where are you? Ah! that's a good boy--carry the satchel into the house. Maria, did you ever see anything so bonny? But, Magnus, how ever did the Factor come to part with her?"
"He wouldn't at first, for all his worries and the hard things he had been saying. And when he came to it at last he wanted me to promise that if Margret Neilsen died before himself he should have the child back again."
"You didn't agree to that, Magnus?"