the whole of his new, happy existence;
but such a thing as finding his mother again must surely belong to the
happiness of the new Nikolai, the journeyman smith! Yes, of course, he
was fond of her, and it was immensely affecting.

And while he walked beside her, and was glad too, and kind and obliging,
and gave up his Saturday afternoon with half a day's pay, he had,
without exactly intending it, spent on a present--an exceedingly large,
gay, flowered silk handkerchief--as much as it had taken him a fortnight
to scrape together; and, besides that, had paid for some fine bread and
a ham, which she had to take back with her, and of which she even tried
a few goodly slices down in the town by way of afternoon refreshment.

She had an appetite, and she could not be very much accustomed to
economising either;--this was about the sum of the happy, filial
comments that Nikolai made to himself after the meeting. In addition to
this, he felt himself unexpectedly lightened of a good deal of money;
and it was in a rather dispirited mood that he went up in the evening in
the hope of seeing Silla, and telling her of his new happiness.

The whole of that side of the town up under the hill already lay in
shadow, and in the oppressively warm evening, labourers were walking
with their coats over their shoulders, while sounds of life and noise
rose here and there from the shops in the manufacturing district below.

Nikolai had traversed in vain the district surrounding the Valsets'
cottage, keeping constant watch at the same time down the broad
high-road, which went past the gate, and the footpath that crept
straight across the field down behind it. Silla was not to be seen. A
girl went with a bucket from the cowshed into the pent-house. She looked
up towards him and laughed, and the consequence was that Nikolai
continued his way towards the factory without once turning round. They
must be able to see through the walls in there! And they had already
begun to wonder at his coming there so often.

The waterfall was turned off, so that only a white streak ran over the
dam and fell drop by drop upon the wheel. A cart was rattling along the
road in front of him. Now it stopped to unload; the load was tumbled off
with one tilt. It was mould that they were driving to the garden outside
the office building at the factory.

Within the fence were a number of women and girls busily at work. They
were raking, pulling up and planting, while a m