"I'm taking a great liberty, sir, but I'm not thinking of myself--I'm thinking of my son. In one sense I'm to blame for all that has happened to him. He doesn't know it and I daren't tell him, but I am."
Christian Christiansson looked up at her.
"It was all my fault that his father took the mortgage."
"Your fault?"
"Yes, sir. My husband loved the poor boy who is gone, but he was the Governor of Iceland and every eye was on him to see that he kept his own house in order, and but for me he might have let the law take its course. I pleaded and prayed with him, thinking that we ourselves would be the ones to suffer. But I only ruined one son in trying to save the other--and I didn't save him."
Christian Christiansson dropped his head, for the waters of bitterness were falling over him in a flood, and Anna, thinking she had touched him, went on more eagerly:
"Then there's the girl, sir, my granddaughter. You've seen her yourself, and you'll say she doesn't look like a servant, but if the auction comes off she'll have to go out to service. They treat girls shamefully in some farmhouses, and my son can not bear the thought of it. Neither can I, for I can't help thinking of her father. Whatever else he may have been he was a gentleman, and to think of his daughter being a drudge to somebody----"
Anna's voice was faltering again, but after a moment she went on bravely.
"As for myself, I'm an old woman, and a little misfortune more or less doesn't matter to me now. My time is short in any case, and I shall be glad to go when I'm called. Most of my loved ones are gone already--my son and my granddaughter are all that are left--and if I could feel that I was leaving them happy and comfortable----"
Christian Christiansson could bear no more. "Landlady," he said, "I had set my heart on buying the farm--I had a particular reason for wishing to buy it--but instead of doing so I'll lend your son the money to pay the interest."