She had waited patiently, too, thinking they would remember old Barbara.  Oh no! one would have to remind them one’s self, if that were to be!

But now that she had Nikolai there, she had thought and meditated and reflected about setting up a little shop in the town.  And she had been out to the Consul’s to-day.

He was cross when she went into the office, and snappish; but she knew him, and began talking cleverly: 

“How is mistress and Mr. Ludvig and Miss Lizzie, might I be so bold as to ask?  Bless me, they must have grown so tall and so grand now, that they couldn’t be expected to know a poor servant again!”

“‘Thin—­thin as laths,’ he laughed.  ’You might easily hold them one in each arm now!  But you must have eaten up the whole barn up there; I didn’t remember that you were so big, Barbara.  I should think he’s had to give up house and lands, that farmer?’ he said, to tease me.

“’Thank you, I wasn’t accustomed to cattle fodder at the Consul’s house,’ said I; ’and it’s me, rather, that’s in such circumstances that I must leave.  That man takes pretty good care that he is not cheated.’

“And then I talked about Ludvig and Lizzie until I began to cry.

“‘And that harum-scarum boy of yours?’ he asked.

“‘Thank you,’ said I, ’my son Nikolai is now a finished journeyman smith in this city.’

“And then I told him my thoughts of coming to town to go into trade.  ’I have always noticed that it has been better to be behind the counter than in front of it,’ I said.

“Then he laughed.  ’You want to make yourself a new storehouse in town, I see, Barbara.’

“’Yes, sir, when it can be done honestly, and with a little help; every one aims at their own maintenance.’

“And then he promised me right down a free room and kitchen in one of the houses up in the manufacturing part of the town for a whole year!”

As mother and son sat opposite to one another, they were not without a certain similarity; but where the leading of fate had turned the features of his broad, intelligent face into muscle and energy, it had in Barbara relaxed all the springs into dull, ponderous fat.

It was not, however, without a certain amount of enthusiasm that she now unfolded her plans for the little business, and how she should procure credit, a little at each place; she still had acquaintances at the shops in the neighbourhood, from the time she was at the Veyergangs’.  Afterwards it was only to sell out, pay for the old, get new again; it all went round like a winch!

But she must have a little more ready money, for hers would not go far enough.  Now, if Nikolai could help her with a little; it would all lie in the goods, so that, for that matter, it was the same whether he put his pence there or in his pocket—­the same to a T!