“He looked at us, did you notice?” whispered Kristofa eagerly into Silla’s ear.

“Yes, because he knows me,” said Silla, a little confused at his having fixed his eyes on her.

There was a burst of laughter.

“Is that young crow going to caw too?”

The young crow grew hot beneath her handkerchief, but she did not answer.  She knew quite well, that he did know her; he had been in the office when she went out with her mother to the Consul-General’s to apply for a place in the factory.

A stream of girls from another factory fell like a tributary into theirs, and then through ramifications of streets and lanes, the whole flowed out into the irregular part of the town that was built of wood, below—­through narrow entrances and up narrow flights of steps, into brown, red, white or grey houses, houses with slate roofs, with turf roofs, with tile roofs, and new houses that had barely been roofed.

Silla slipped into a narrow, damp entry.  The sun shone through the cracks in the rotten woodwork full of bent rusty nails, and from time to time a dirty stream issued from beneath the gate, and disappeared into the gutter.

She stopped a moment as she heard her mother’s righteous indignation venting itself within, in the familiar, dry, measured tones; and it was hesitatingly and with a depressed look that she opened the gate, behind which stood Mrs. Andersen’s servant-maid, furiously red, and incapable of defending herself, while Mrs. Holman, her skirts fastened up, and her feet astride over the gutter-board, was rinsing and wringing out clothes.  She was working calmly and deliberately; nothing in her cold grey eyes betrayed agitation.

“Mrs. Andersen ought at least to have the good sense to understand that clothes that had been used so long couldn’t be got ready in one week.  For that matter, you’re welcome to tell her so from me.  And I haven’t been accustomed either, even in my humble position, to send clothes to the wash not patched or mended; and I can tell you that both Mother Nilsen next door and the people in this house have wondered to see the things that a person, who calls herself a chandler’s wife, lets her husband and children wear!  No, you needn’t contradict me, my good girl; when I say a thing, it’s the truth.  And the stockings—­we’ll say nothing about them; for one heel was gathered up with a piece of twine, so that it was a disgrace to stand and wash them.  People may look as high and mighty as they like—­the wash speaks out!”

With slow, crushing significance she turned to her daughter.

“If you had come a little sooner, Silla, you might have saved me a great deal of work.  But it’s of no consequence; the sooner I’m dead and gone, the better.  I’ve never wanted to live either, since your father went away.”

“I’ll help you wring, mother.”

“Now it’s all done?  Many thanks!  But it would have shown a little forethought, if you, who have only been sitting up in the factory, had hurried yourself a little to help your mother, who’s had to stand and work hard all the morning.”