Fru Raklitz had been hard enough on Lisa Maja while the father was alive; but when he died, in the year 1801, and she was in full control, she became even more harsh and exacting. The stepdaughter was now wholly at her mercy, without support or protection from any quarter. The girl was but seventeen—too young and inexperienced to hold her own with a canny old woman. She had a brother, to be sure, but he was at Upsala University studying, so that she could not look to him for any help.
The stepmother and she were soon at daggers' points. Fru Raklitz wanted her to marry the clergyman who had succeeded her father, but Lisa Maja would not agree to that. She opposed all the arguments of the stepmother and the parish folk, who thought the old order such an excellent thing. The clergyman's daughter had her own ideas about marriage. She would not marry a man merely because he happened to be the priest at Ämtervik; he must also be the sort she could love.
The new pastor was anxious to put the matter through. He had got into the good graces of the step-
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