His father himself had sat by listening and had smiled on him.
"Be good now, dear Oyvind," he thought he heard the school-master say, taking him on his lap, as when he was a child.

"Dear me! it all matters so little, and in fact all people are kind; it merely seems as if they were not.

We two will be clever, Oyvind, just as clever as Jon Hatlen; we shall yet have good clothes, and dance with Marit in a light room, with a hundred people in it; we will smile and talk together; there will be a bride and bridegroom, a priest, and I will be in the choir smiling upon you, and mother will be at home, and there will be a large gard with twenty cows, three horses, and Marit as good and kind as at school." The dancing ceased.

Oyvind saw Marit on the bench in front of him, and Jon by her side with his face close up to hers; again there came that great burning pain in his breast, and he seemed to be saying to himself: "It is true, I am suffering." Just then Marit rose, and she came straight to him.

She stooped over him.
"You must not sit there staring so fixedly at me," said she; "you might know that people are noticing it.