"
"As for that," answers Barbro, "I'd have just as pleased if you
hadn't."
"And that's all the thanks I get," says her mistress.
"Least said the better, perhaps," says Barbro. "I wouldn't have got
more than a month or two, anyway, and done with it."
Fru Heyerdahl is speechless for a moment; ay, for a little while she
stands saying nothing, only opening and closing her mouth. The first
thing she says is to tell the girl to go; she will have no more of
her.
"Just as you please," says Barbro.
For some days after that Barbro had been at home with her parents. But
she could not go on staying there. True, her mother sold coffee, and
there came a deal of folk to the house, but Barbro could not live on
that--and maybe she had other reasons of her own for wanting to get
into a settled position again. And so today she had taken a sack of
clothes on her back, and started up along the road over the moors.
Question now, whether Axel Stroem would take her? But she had had the
banns put up, anyway, the Sunday before.
Raining, and dirty underfoot, but Barbro tramps on.
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