as if all common sense was going out of the world. On all sides we have this bowing down to the common people,… this worship of the peasant, it seems to be in the air in these days, like any other plague. How in the world are we otherwise to explain the fact—that people who up to this time have been ordinarily sensible, suddenly, and apparently without any reason, become absolutely possessed? Even people who were schoolfellows of my own, suddenly, in their old age, begin to play the fool, by dressing in homespun, speaking like peasants, and setting their daughters to milk the cows! And now this! It's stark lunacy! and you will see, Ragnhild, it won't stop here! This is only the first outcome of the folly. Others will follow. Mr Hansted has already to such an extent lost his sound sense and judgment, that, like all persons of limited views, who are absorbed by anything new, he imagines that he has a mission to fulfil here. He is to be the prophet of the new times, to found parties and lead riots, according to the fashion of these days."
Miss Ragnhild had taken off her hat and gone to the window with the mechanical movements of a sleep-walker. She sat down as if overcome with fatigue, and stared out into the courtyard. As soon as she saw that her father had stopped in a corner of the room and was observing her, she leant back in her chair, and said, without really meaning it—
