Explore "The Emperor of Portugallia" by Selma Lagerlof on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
One evening, toward the close of autumn, Jan was on his way home from Falla, where he had been threshing all day. After his talk with the seine-maker his desire for work had come back to him. He felt now that he must do what he could to keep up so that the little girl on her return would not be subjected to the humiliation of finding her parents reduced to the condition of paupers.
When Jan was far enough away from the house not to be seen from the windows he noticed a woman in the road coming toward him. Dusk had already fallen, but he soon saw it was the mistress herself -- not the new one, but the old and rightful mistress of Falla. She had on a big shawl that came down to the hem of her skirt. Jan had never seen her so wrapped up, and wondered if she was ill. She had looked poorly of late. In the spring, when her husband died, she had not a gray hair on her head, and now, half a year afterward, she had not a dark hair left.