something like real tears over old Sivert's grave. Eleseus should know
best what he himself had written--so-and-so much to Oline, to be
a comfort and support in her declining years. And where was that
support? Oh, a broken reed!

Poor Oline; they might have left her something--single golden gleam
in her life! Oline was not over-blessed with this world's goods.
Practised in evil--ay, well used to edging her way by tricks and
little meannesses from day to day; strong only as a scandalmonger, as
one whose tongue was to be feared; ay, so. But nothing could have made
her worse than before; least of all a pittance left her by the dead.
She had toiled all her life, had borne children, and taught them her
own few arts; begged for them, maybe stolen for them, but always
managing for them somehow--a mother in her poor way. Her powers were
not less than those of other politicians; she acted for herself and
those belonging to her, set her speech according to the moment, and
gained her end, earning a cheese or a handful of wool each time; she
also could live and die in commonplace insincerity and readiness of
wit. Oline--maybe old Sivert had for a moment thought of her as young,
pretty, and rosy-cheeked, but now she is old, deformed, a picture of
decay; she ought to have been dead. Where is she to be buried? She
has no family vault of her own; nay, she will be lowered down in a
graveyard to lie among the bones of strangers and unknown; ay, to that
she comes at last--Oline, born and died. She had been young once. A
pittance left to her now, at the eleventh hour? Ay, a single golden
gleam, and this slave-woman's hands would have been folded for a
moment. Justice would have overtaken her with its late reward; for
that she had begged for her children, maybe stolen for them, but
always managed for them some way. A moment--and the darkness would
reign in her as before; her eyes glower, her fingers feel out