“Changed for the worse, indeed!  Well, I don’t mind telling you you’re ever so much prettier now,” said he, “filled out all round.  For the worse?  Ho!  That’s a fine idea!”

“But it’s a nice dress, don’t you think?  Cut open just a bit front and back.  And then I had that silver chain you see there, and it cost a heap of money, too; it was a present from one of the young clerks I was with then.  But I lost it.  Not exactly lost it, you know, but I wanted money to come home.”

Eleseus asked:  “Can I have the photo to keep?”

“To keep?  H’m.  What’ll you give me for it?”

Oh, Eleseus knew well enough what he wanted to say, but he dared not.  “I’ll have mine taken when I go back to town,” he said instead, “and send it you.”

Barbro put away the photograph.  “No, it’s the only one I’ve left.”

That was a stroke of darkness to his young heart, and he stretched out 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....”