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Then a hot tear fell down upon her head, rolled over her face and neck, down on to the loaf on which she stood; and then another tear rolled down, followed by many more. Who might be weeping for Inge? Had she not still a mother in the world? The tears of sorrow which a mother weeps for her child always make their way to the child; but they do not relieve it, they only increase its torment. And now to bear this unendurable hunger, and yet not to be able to touch the loaf on which she stood! She felt as if she had been feeding on herself, and had become like a thin, hollow reed that takes in every sound, for she heard everything that was said of her up in the world, and all that she heard was hard and evil. Her mother, indeed, wept much and sorrowed for her, but for all that she said, “A haughty spirit goes before a fall. That was thy ruin, Inge. Thou hast sorely grieved thy mother.”

Her mother and all on earth knew of the sin she had committed; knew that she had trodden upon the loaf, and had sunk and disappeared; for the cowherd had seen it from the hill beside the moor.

“Greatly hast thou grieved thy mother, Inge,” said the mother; “yes, yes, I thought it would be thus.”

“Oh that I never had been born!” thought Inge; “it would have been far better. But what use is my mother’s weeping now?”

And she heard how her master and mistress, who had kept and cherished her like kind parents, now said she was a sinful child, and did not value the gifts of God, but trampled them under her feet, and that the gates of mercy would only open slowly to her.

“They should have punished me,” thought Inge, “and have driven out the whims I had in my head.”

She heard how a complete song was made about her, a song of the proud girl who trod upon the loaf to keep her shoes clean, and she heard how the song was sung everywhere.

“That I should have to bear so much evil for this!” thought Inge; “the others ought to be punished, too, for their sins. Yes, then there would be plenty of punishing to do. Ah, how I’m being tortured!” And her heart became harder than her outward form.

“Here in this company one can’t even become better,” she said, “and I don’t want to become better! Look, how they’re all staring at me!”

And her heart was full of anger and malice against all men. “Now they’ve something to talk about at last up yonder. Ah, how I’m being tortured!”

And then she heard how her story was told to the little children, and the little ones called her the godless Inge, and said she was so naughty and ugly that she must be well punished.

Thus, even the children’s mouths spoke hard words of her.

But one day, while grief and hunger gnawed her hollow frame, and she heard her name mentioned and her story told to an innocent child, a little girl, she became aware that the little one burst into tears at the tale of the haughty, vain Inge.

“But will Inge never come up here again?” asked the little girl.

And the reply was, “She will never come up again.”

“But if she were to say she was sorry, and to beg pardon, and say she would never do so again?”

“Yes, then she might come; but she will not beg pardon,” was the reply.

“I should be so glad if she would,” said the little girl; and she was quite inconsolable. “I’ll give my doll and all my playthings if she may only come up. It’s too dreadful–poor Inge!”

And these words penetrated to Inge’s inmost heart, and seemed to do her good. It was the first time any one had said, “Poor Inge,” without adding anything about her faults: a little innocent child was weeping and praying for mercy for her. It made her feel quite strangely, and she herself would gladly have wept, but she could not weep, and that was a torment in itself.