t a drop of water in it.
It had come now!

She went in and dressed the child; she hardly knew what she was doing,
and hardly felt it under her hands.

She saw the man give six dollars to the tinsmith's wife. He was so stiff
and tall and distinguished-looking, with such a big, aristocratic nose,
and he made a kind of bend every time she happened to look at him, and
assured her that there was no hurry--not the least! They never woke
before nine at the Consul's, so there was still plenty of time. And then
he looked at his watch.

And every time he looked at his watch, she looked at her boy: there were
now orders and a time fixed for her to leave him.

He had fallen asleep again. If he were to wake, she did not know what
would happen--she was sure she could not leave him then.

"No hurry, no hurry!" and he took the thick silver watch out of his
pocket once more.

But now it was she who was in a hurry, and so eager that she gave
herself no time to look round before she was seated in the carriage, and
the long, stiff-necked, braided coachman was driving her away along the
road of her appointed destiny.

In the summer she accompanied the Consul-General's family to a
bathing-place. There Barbara wheeled the perambulator with the two
children in it along the shore, and more than once the Veyergangs were
flattered by the exclamations of passers-by: "What a fine-looking
nurse!"

But there were difficulties with her, too--fits of melancholy to which
she completely gave way. She would sit by the cradle, her eyes red with
weeping, longing for her child, and would neither eat nor drink.

This was a matter of no little importance. A nurse must be kept in good
spirits; her frame of mind has such an immense influence on her health,
and that again on the health of the child.

Mrs. Veyergang had all sorts of good things brought in from the
pastry-cook's to enliven her; silk handkerchiefs and aprons abounded,
and the servants at home received injunctions to inquire after Barbara's
boy at the tinsmith's.

There was praise and nothing but praise to be given every time the
Consul-General's Lars stopped there in driving past, and when Barbara
only received a message of that kind, she could be happy and contented
the whole month.

She was made much of, as she very soon felt. If she said or wanted
anything, she was obeyed as if she were the mistress herself. And
handsome clothes with constant change of fine underclothing, not to