the place, and back in her home--Inger Sellanraa.' 'Inger?' said he;
'why, yes. She's a good sort--I wish we could keep her for twenty
years,' said he. 'Well, you won't,' said I. 'She's been here too long
already.' 'Too long?' says he. 'Do you know what she's in for?' 'I
know all about it,' says I, 'being Lensmand in the district.' 'Oh,'
says he, 'won't you sit down?' Quite the proper thing to say, of
course. 'Why,' says the Governor then, 'we do what we can for her
here, and her little girl too. So she's from your part of the country,
is she? We've helped her to get a sewing-machine of her own; she's
gone through the workshops right to the top, and we've taught her a
deal--weaving, household work, dyeing, cutting out. Been here too
long, you say?' Well, I'd got my answer ready for that all right, but
it could wait, so I only said her case had been badly muddled, and had
to be taken up again; now, after the revision of the criminal code,
she'd probably have been acquitted altogether. And I told him about
the hare. 'A hare?' says the Governor. 'A hare,' says I. 'And the
child was born with a hare-lip.' 'Oh,' says he, smiling, 'I see. And
you think they ought to have made more allowance for that?' 'They
didn't make any at all,' said I, 'for it wasn't mentioned.' 'Well, I
dare say it's not so bad, after all.' 'Bad enough for her, anyway.'
'Do you believe a hare can work miracles, then?' says he. 'As to
that,' said I, 'whether a hare can work miracles or not's a matter I
won't discuss just now. The question is, what effect the _sight_ of a
hare might have on a woman with her disfigurement, in her condition.'
Well, he thought over that for a bit. 'H'm,' says he at last. 'Maybe,
maybe. Anyhow, we're not concerned with that here. All we have to
do is to take over the people they send us; not to revise their
sentences. And according to her sentence, Inger's not yet finished her
time.'