"No, you could not be expected to. My mother and Jacob call me Lisbeth Longfrock, and I am from Peerout Castle. Mother sent me here with the woolen yarn she has spun for you. She told me to say that she could not come with it before, for she did not get the last spool wound until late last night."
"Indeed! Can it be a spinning woman we have here? And to think that I wholly forgot to ask you to sit down after your long walk! You really must take off your things and stay awhile."
What a pleasant woman Kjersti Hoel was! She got up from her own chair and set one forward for Lisbeth.
"Thank you; I shall be glad to sit down," said Lisbeth.
She took off the pail and the bundle of wool and put them down by the door, and then began to walk across the floor over to the chair. It seemed as if she would never get there, so far was it across the big kitchen,—nearly as far as from their own door to the cow-house door at Peerout Castle. At last, however, she reached the chair; but it was higher than the seats she was accustomed to and she could barely scramble up on one corner of it.
Kjersti Hoel came toward her.
"I really think I must open this roly-poly bundle and see what is in it," said she; and she began to take off Lisbeth's red mittens and to undo the knitted shawls. Soon Lisbeth sat there stripped of all her outer toggery, but nevertheless looking almost as plump and roly-poly as ever; for not only did her long frock barely clear the ground at the bottom, but its band reached almost up under her arms.
Kjersti stood and looked at her a moment.
"That is just what I thought,—that I should find a nice little girl inside all those clothes. You look like your mother."
At this Lisbeth grew so shy that she forgot all about being a spinning woman. She cast down her eyes and could not say a word.