"Catharina was always sorry that I was ill," he said. "When I stayed here, as I have done, for weeks together, she used to take every care of me. And it was a kindly sympathy which I could not resent. In those days I was suffering more than I have done for a long time now, and she was very pitiful. She could not bear to hear me cough. I used to tell her that she must learn not to feel. But you see she did not learn her lesson, for when this trouble came on her, she felt too much. And you see what she is."
They had a cheery meal together, and then Bernardine talked with the old mother, whilst the Disagreeable Man busied himself with his camera. Liza was for putting on her best dress, and doing her hair in some wonderful way. But he would not hear of such a thing. But seeing that she looked disappointed, he gave in, and said she should be photographed just as she wished; and off she ran to change her attire. She went up to her room a picturesque, homely working girl, and she came down a tidy, awkward-looking young woman, with all her finery on, and all her charm off.
The Disagreeable Man grunted, but said nothing.
Then Hans arrived, and then came the posing, which caused much amusement. They both stood perfectly straight, just as a soldier stands before presenting arms. Both faces were perfectly expressionless. The Disagreeable Man was in despair.
"Look happy!" he entreated.
They tried to smile, but the anxiety to do so produced an expression of melancholy which was too much for the gravity of the photographer. He laughed heartily.
"Look as though you weren't going to be photographed," he suggested. "Liza, for goodness' sake look as though you were baking the bread; and Hans, try and believe that you are doing some of your beautiful carving."
The patience of the photographer was something wonderful. At last he succeeded in making them appear at their ease. And then he told Liza that she must go and change her dress, and be photographed now in the way he wished. She came down again, looking fifty times prettier in her working clothes.
Now he was in his element. He arranged Liza and Hans on the sledge of timber, which had then driven up, and made a picturesque group of them all: Hans and Liza sitting side by side on the timber, the horses standing there so patiently after their long journey through the forests, the driver leaning against his sledge smoking his long china pipe.
"That will be something like a picture," he said to Bernardine, when the performance was over. "Now I am going for about a mile's walk. Will you come with me and see what I am going to photograph, or will you rest here till I come back?"