"

Barbro too is self-possessed enough; she plays with a silver ring on
one hand and a gold ring on the other--ay, true enough, if she hasn't
got a gold ring too--and she wears an apron reaching from neck to
feet, as if to say she is not spoiled as to her figure, whoever else
may be that way. And when the coffee is ready and her guests are
drinking, she sews a little to begin with on a white cloth, and then
does a little crochet-work with a collar of some sort, and so with all
manner of maidenly tasks. Barbro is not put out by their visit, and
all the better; they can talk naturally, and Eleseus can be all on the
surface again, young and witty as he pleases.

"What have you done with Axel?" asks Sivert.

"Oh, he's about the place somewhere," she answers, pulling herself up.
"And so we'll not be seeing you this way any more, I doubt?" she asks
Eleseus.

"It's hardly probable," says he.

"Ay, 'tis no place for one as is used to the town. I only wish I could
go along with you."

"You don't mean that, I know."

"Don't mean it? Oh, I've known what it is to live in town, and what
it's like here; and I've been in a bigger town than you, for that
matter--and shouldn't I miss it?"

"I didn't mean that way," says Eleseus hastily. "After you being in
Bergen itself and all." Strange, how impatient she was, after all!

"I only know that if it wasn't for having the papers to read, I'd not
stay here another day," says she.

"But what about Axel, then, and all the rest?--'twas that I was
thinking."

"As for Axel, 'tis no business of mine. And what about yourself--I
doubt there'll be some one waiting for you in town?"

And at that, Eleseus couldn't help showing off a little and closing
his eyes and turning over the morsel on his tongue: perhaps true
enough there was some one waiting for him in town. Oh, but he could
have managed this ever so differently, snapped at the chance, if it
hadn't been for Sivert sitting there! As it was, he could only say:
"Don't talk such nonsense!"

"Ho," said she--and indeed she was shamefully ill-humoured
today--"nonsense, indeed! Well, what can you expect of folk at
Maaneland? we're not so great and fine as you--no."

Oh, she could go to the devil, what did Eleseus care; her face was
visibly dirty, and her condition plain enough now even to his innocent
eyes.

"Can't you play a bit on the guitar?" he asked.

"No," answered Barbro shortly. "What I was going to say: Sivert,
couldn't y