inspected some point in its mechanism with a scowl of intense
preoccupation, and then spun on again with a severe concentration of
interest as if lovers were of small consequence compared to
spinning-wheels. Mother Uberta was a tall, stately woman of fifty,
with a comely wrinkled face, and large, well-modelled features. You
saw at once that life was a serious business to her, and that she gave
herself no quarter.

"Humph!" she began after awhile with that indefinable interjection of
displeasure which defies all spelling. "You talk like the witless
creature that you are. Didn't I tell the lad, two years ago,
Michaelmas was, that the day he could pay off the mortgage on the
farm, he should have you and the farm too? And eight hundred and fifty
florins oughtn't to frighten a man as has got the right spirit in
him. And there was Ruodi of Gänzelstein, as has got a big farm of his
own, and Casper Thinglen with fifteen hundred a-comin' to him when his
grandfather dies; and you sendin' them both off with worse grace than
if they had been beggars askin' you for a shillin'. Now, stop your
snivellin' there, I tell you. You are like your poor sainted
father,--God bless him where he lies,--he too used to cry, likely
enough, if a flea bit him."

At this moment Mother Uberta's monologue was interrupted by a loud
rapping on the door; she bent down to attach the unfinished thread
properly, but before she had completed this delicate operation, the
door was opened, and two men entered. Seeing that they were strangers
she sent them a startled glance, which presently changed into one of
defiance. The fire was low, and the two men stood but dimly defined in
the dusky light; but their city attire showed at once that they were
not Tyrolese. And Mother Uberta, having heard many awful tales of what