a long time to then."

"I may need to hear it once more. When you aren't more sure than I am,
you like to feel twice whether the strap you are holding on to is firmly
fastened, or if it will give way. You have got so much into your head
since you came up here to the factory."

"Take care! Just you take care, Nikolai. You have become so dreadfully
afraid for me lately," she said, laughing saucily; "but I've become a
little grown-up too. It's only you who don't see it, and stand there
like a post! But you can't think how awfully busy I am now. As soon as
ever I've swallowed my supper, I go up to the factory again. I and
Kristofa and Kalla and Josefa have got the whole of the weeding and
tidying up in the office garden, down all the peas and carrots, and
cabbage-beds as well; and when it grows over in the autumn, we shall
have that too."

Nikolai only stood reckoning. Twenty-seven dollars, subtracting what he
had spent on his mother to-day--the ham, too, for he would not get that
back--that was what he owned, and he needed at least twice as much again
before he could get the most necessary things for his room. Only to get
her out of this, even if he had to work day and night.

Aloud he only said cautiously: "If we are only wise, and careful, and
look well ahead, perhaps we may be sitting in our own room by next
spring, Silla. But so many things may happen in between," he added
huskily, with a deep-drawn sigh.

"I really believe there'll be neither life nor courage in you until
you're married, Nikolai," she said, laughing; "you're so horrid to meet
now, that it's enough to make one quite sad and uncomfortable the whole
evening. A nice sweetheart you are!" She swung roguishly round on her
heel, with the can extended, and ran down the road, nodding a farewell.

He had not got so far as to tell her what he had originally gone up
there for--the news about his mother, and, to tell the truth, he had
completely forgotten it; but it would be time enough next time he met
her. And it must not be too long to that, things looking as they did
now.

* * * * *

A few weeks afterwards some one inquired for him.

A peasant carter, in a state of great uncertainty about his load, had
stopped outside the eating-house. Part of the load was made up of his
mother's big chest, which the man had undertaken to drive to town, and
leave for the meantime at Nikolai's. Barbara herself was to follow in a
day or t