“You can go and see your parents now and then during the day,” says her mistress.

But Fru Heyerdahl was wide awake enough, and her suspicion was not gone; she waited a week, and tried at four in the morning.  “Barbro!” she called.  Oh, but this time ’twas Cook’s turn out, and Barbro was at home; the maids’ room was a nest of innocence.  Her mistress had to hit on something in a hurry.

“Did you take in the washing last night?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a good thing, it’s blowing so hard....  Good-night.”

But it was not so pleasant for Fru Heyerdahl to get her husband to wake her in the middle of the night and go padding across herself to the servants’ room to see if they were at home.  They could do as they pleased, she would trouble herself no more.

And if it had not been for sheer ill-luck, Barbro might have stayed the year out in her place that way.  But a few days ago the trouble had come.

It was in the kitchen, early one morning.  Barbro had been having some words with Cook, and no light words either; they raised their voices, forgetting all about their mistress.  Cook was a mean thing and a cheat, she had sneaked off last night out of her turn because it was Sunday.  And what excuse had she to give?  Going to say good-bye to her favourite sister that was off to America?  Not a bit of it; Cook had made no excuse at all, but simply said that Sunday night was one had been owing to her for a long 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.”