When at last he got into bed in his room on the first floor, he put out the light on the table by his bedside, and yawned wearily. “I’ll pretend to be asleep when she comes up,” he said to himself, “and then I shall be spared both sacrament and guarantee for this evening.”
As he lay looking at the red glow from the half-closed draught of the stove, the door opened, and Laura crept softly in. She seated herself on the edge of her father’s bed, stroked his beard two or three times, and then confided to him in a whisper that her monthly account was in terrible disorder. Her mother had not gone over it yet, but she might ask for it any day now.
“And you think you can cheat me as much as you like, do you?” said the old man from his pillows. The child withdrew her hand from his beard in some confusion, but he caught it, and as he felt how small and soft it was, he said in a sleepy voice:
“You must come into my office to-morrow, then, and we shall see!”
The girl stroked his beard once more, and laid her cheek against his, for she knew now that her deficit would be made good.
She had scarcely gone when the door opened again. The old man hastily closed his eyes; but it was Ingeborg with the clothes he had asked for upon her arm.
“Isn’t some one crossing the yard with a lantern?” asked her father, seeing a light upon the blind.
“Yes, it’s the dairymaid,” said Ingeborg; “she’s expecting a calf to-night.”
And now Ingeborg too came and upon sat his bed.
“There’s something I must tell you, father,” she began softly. “When I was at the post-office to-day, I heard that Lawyer Basting had been declaring that you would suffer too by this failure. I didn’t dare to tell mother until I had spoken to you about it.”