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 you come and help Axel a bit with the new house a day or so?  If you could begin tomorrow, say, when you come back from the village?”

Sivert thought for a moment.  “Ay, maybe.  But I’ve no clothes.”

“I could run up and fetch your working clothes this evening, so they’ll be here when you get back.”

“Ay,” said Sivert, “if you could.”

And Barbro unnecessarily eager now:  “Oh, if only you would come!  Here’s summer nearly gone already, and the house that should be up and roofed before the autumn rains.  Axel, he’s been going to ask you a many times before, but he couldn’t, somehow.  Oh, you’d be helping us no end!”