Inger had not yet given up her idea of keeping a servant; she brought up the question every spring, and every time Isak opposed it stubbornly.  All the cutting out and sewing and fine weaving she could do, not to speak of making embroidered slippers, if she had but the time to herself!  And of late, Isak had been something less firm in his refusal, though he grumbled still.  Ho, the first time!  He had made a whole long speech about it; not as a matter of right and reason, nor yet from pride, but, alas! from weakness, from anger at the idea.  But now, he seemed to be giving way, as if ashamed.

“If ever I’m to have help in the house, now’s the time,” said Inger.  “A few years more, and Leopoldine’ll be big enough to do this and that.”

“Help?” said Isak.  “What do you want help with, anyway?”

“Want with it, indeed?  Haven’t you help yourself?  Haven’t you Sivert all the time?”

What could Isak say to a meaningless argument like that?  He answered:  “Ay, well; when you get a girl up here, I doubt you’ll be able to plough and sow and reap and manage all by yourselves.  And then Sivert and I can go our ways.”

“That’s as may be,” said Inger.  “But I’ll just say this:  that I could get Barbro to come now; she’s written home about it.”

“What Barbro?” said Isak.  “Is it that Brede’s girl you mean?”

“Yes.  She’s in Bergen now.”

“I’ll not have that Brede’s girl Barbro up here,” said he.  “Whoever you get, I’ll have none of her.”

That was better than nothing; Isak refused to have Barbro; he no longer said they would have no servant at all.

Barbro from Breidablik was not the sort of girl Isak approved of; she was shallow and unsettled like her father—­maybe like her mother too—­a careless creature, no steady character at all.  She had not stayed long at the Lensmand’s; only a year.  After her confirmation, she went to help at the storekeeper’s, and was there another year.  Here she turned pious and got religion, and when the Salvation Army came to the village she joined it, and went about with a red band on her sleeve and carried a guitar.  She went to Bergen in that costume, on the storekeeper’s boat—­that was last year.  And she had just sent home a photograph of herself to her people at Breidablik.  Isak had seen it; a strange young lady with her hair curled up and a long watch-chain hanging down over her breast.  Her parents were proud of little Barbro, and showed the photograph about to all who came; ’twas grand to see how she had learned town ways and got on in the world.  As for the red band and the guitar, she had given them up, it seemed.

“I took the picture along and showed it to the Lensmand’s lady,” said Brede.  “She didn’t know her again.”

“Is she going to stay in Bergen?” said Isak suspiciously.

“Why, unless she goes on to Christiania, perhaps,” said Brede.  “What’s there for her to do here?  She’s got a new place now, as housekeeper, for two young clerks.  They’ve no wives nor womenfolk of their own, and they pay her well.”