She comprehended everything, and could say everything with her eyes; but best of all she knew how to thank one.

No high-priest who at the great hill festival praises the Gods in long hymns for their gifts can return thanks so earnestly with his lips as she with her dumb eyes.

And when she wished to pray, then it seemed as though the demon in her look was mightier than ever.
"At first I used to be impatient enough when she leaned so feebly against the wall, or when the child cried and disturbed my sleep; but she had only to look up, and the demon pressed my heart together and persuaded me that the crying was really a song.

Pennu cried more sweetly too than other children, and he had such soft, white, pretty little fingers.
"One day he had been crying for a long time, At last I bent down over him, and was going to scold him, but he seized me by the beard.

It was pretty to see! Afterwards he was for ever wanting to pull me about, and his mother noticed that that pleased me, for when I brought home anything good, an egg or a flower or a cake, she used to hold him up and place his little hands on my beard.
"Yes, in a few months the woman had learnt to hold him up high in her arms, for with care and quiet she had grown stronger.