ong time.

"Oh, you've not an atom of truth nor decency in your body!" said
Barbro.

And there was the mistress in the doorway.

She had come out, perhaps, with no more thought than that the girls
were making too much noise, but now she stood looking, very closely
at Barbro, at Barbro's apron over her breast; ay, leaning forward and
looking very closely indeed. It was a painful moment. And suddenly Fru
Heyerdahl screams and draws back to the door. What on earth can it be?
thinks Barbro, and looks down at herself. _Herregud_! a flea, nothing
more. Barbro cannot help smiling, and being not unused to acting under
critical circumstances, she flicks off the flea at once.

"On the floor!" cried Fru Heyerdahl. "Are you mad, girl? Pick it up
at once!" Barbro begins looking about for it, and once more acts with
presence of mind: she makes as if she had caught the creature, and
drops it realistically into the fire.

"Where did you get it?" asks her mistress angrily.

"Where I got it?"

"Yes, that's what I want to know."

But here Barbro makes a bad mistake. "At the store," she ought to have
said, of course--that would have been quite enough. As it was--she did
not know where she had got the creature, but had an idea it must have
been from Cook.

Cook at the height of passion at once: "From me! You'll please to keep
your fleas to yourself, so there!"

"Anyway, 'twas you was out last night."

Another mistake--she should have said nothing about it. Cook has no
longer any reason for keeping silence, and now she let out the
whole thing, and told all about the nights Barbro had been out. Fru
Heyerdahl mightily indignant; she cares nothing about Cook, 'tis
Barbro she is after, the girl whose character she has answered for.
And even then all might have been well if Barbro had bowed her head
like a reed, and been cast down with shame, and promised all manner of
things for the future--but no. Her mistress is forced to remind her of
all she has done for her, and at that, if you please, Barbro falls to
answering back, ay, so foolish was she, saying impertinent things. Or
perhaps she was cleverer than might seem; trying on purpose, maybe, to
bring the matter to a head, and get out of the place altogether? Says
her mistress:

"After I've saved you from the clutches of the Law."

"As for that," answers Barbro, "I'd have just as pleased if you
hadn't."

"And that's all the thanks I get," says her mistress.

"Least said the b