"
"And how much was it?"
"Between five and ten thousand."
"_Daler_?" cried Eleseus suddenly, mimicking his brother.
Oline, no doubt, thought this ill-timed jesting. Oh, she had herself
been cheated of her due; for all that she had managed to squeeze out
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.
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