his hand towards the picture.

"Well, give me something for it, now," she said, laughing. And at that
he up and kissed her properly.

After that it was easier all round; Eleseus brightened up, and got
on finely. They flirted and joked and laughed, and were excellent
friends. "When you took my hand just now it was like a bit of swan's
down--yours, I mean."

"Oh, you'll be going back to town again, and never come back here,
I'll be bound," said Barbro.

"Do you think I'm that sort?" said Eleseus.

"Ah, I dare say there's a somebody there you're fond of."

"No, there isn't. Between you and me, I'm not engaged at all," said
he.

"Oh yes, you are; I know."

"No, solemn fact, I'm not."

They carried on like this quite a while; Eleseus was plainly in love.
"I'll write to you," said he. "May I?"

"Yes," said she.

"For I wouldn't be mean enough if you didn't care about it, you
know." And suddenly he was jealous, and asked: "I've heard say you're
promised to Axel here; is it true?"

"Axel?" she said scornfully, and he brightened up again. "I'll see him
farther!" But then she turned penitent, and added: "Alex, he's good
enough for me, though.... And he takes in a paper all for me to read,
and gives me things now and again--lots of things. I will say that"

"Oh, of course," Eleseus agreed. "He may be an excellent fellow in his
way, but that's not everything...."

But the thought of Axel seemed to have made Barbro anxious; she got
up, and said to Eleseus: "You'll have to go now; I must see to the
animals."

Next Sunday Eleseus went down a good deal later than usual, and
carried the letter himself. It was a letter! A whole week of
excitement, all the trouble it had cost him to write, but here it
was at last; he had managed to produce a letter: "To Froeken Barbro
Bredesen. It is two or three times now I have had the inexpressible
delight of seeing you again...."

Coming so late as he did now, Barbro must at any rate have finished
seeing to the animals, and might perhaps have gone to bed already.
That wouldn't matter--quite the reverse, indeed.

But Barbro was up, sitting in the hut. She looked now as if she had
suddenly lost all idea of being nice to him and making love--Eleseus
fancied Axel had perhaps got hold of her and warned her.

"Here's the letter I promised you," he said.

"Thank you," said she, and opened it, and read it through without
seeming much moved. "I wish I could write as nice a hand as tha