But—­how unfortunate it was—­Mrs. Scheele was extremely sorry—­they had just engaged another nurse!

“Fancy!” exclaimed Mrs. Scheele, when her husband came down from his office, “there is a revolution at the Veyergangs’, and that high and mighty Nurse Barbara has got her dismissal.  She has been here and offered herself to us.  I wouldn’t have that pampered creature at any price!”

Barbara walked a long way that day and to the best houses.  On a large sheet of paper, folded in three, she had the Consul-General’s long and excellent testimonial to exhibit; moreover she was fully conscious of the extent to which she was known.  But though she stood so large and erect and smart at the door, and comported herself so well, there was no one who could make any use of her!

And late in the evening, later than was needful, as she did not wish to show herself, she came home again, disappointed and weary.

It really seemed as if all the celebrity she had acquired during all these years, all her fidelity, all her prestige as nurse at the Veyergangs, was to vanish at one stroke into thin air!

Deeply hurt as she was after her unlucky expedition, it was remarkable that no one in the house asked her how she had got on—­though there were plenty of mischievous glances from her fellow-servants, whose standing with their mistress had depended for so many years upon her.  And whenever she tried to broach the subject with Mrs. Veyergang, the latter always turned the conversation—­indeed, once she even dismissed the subject, saying that Barbara must know that she never meddled with such things.

But the kindness increased as the day of her departure approached.  Barbara began to perceive how this screw of kindness, that turned so gently, was screwing her farther and farther out of the house.  The Consul had Nikolai placed on trial as apprentice in a smithy down by the crane, and from Mrs. Veyergang she received one thing after another, as remembrances.  But when, one day, the Consul—­very thoughtfully—­made her a present of one of his old travelling trunks, she let her large, heavy person sink down upon its lid, completely overwhelmed.  She could not bring herself to think, had never believed, that the day would come when she must part from her mistress and Ludvig and Lizzie—­it would kill her!

This was a direct appeal to the Consul himself, but the answer was not exactly as Barbara wished.  He patted her on the shoulder, saying: 

“I’m glad, my dear Barbara, that you feel that you have been well off.”

When she went into the Consul’s office for a settlement and to receive her savings-bank book—­the amount it contained was a hundred and fourteen specie-dollars, a result, the Consul said, with which she ought to be thoroughly satisfied, when she considered the great expense she had been put to with Nikolai—­she declared her intention of resting for a time before she went out to service again, and had made arrangements to lodge with a farmer out in the country:  she had now been toiling for others for fourteen years!