Barbro too is self-possessed enough; she plays with a silver ring on one hand and a gold ring on the other—ay, true enough, if she hasn't got a gold ring too—and she wears an apron reaching from neck to feet, as if to say she is not spoiled as to her figure, whoever else may be that way. And when the coffee is ready and her guests are drinking, she sews a little to begin with on a white cloth, and then does a little crochet-work with a collar of some sort, and so with all manner of maidenly tasks. Barbro is not put out by their visit, and all the better; they can talk naturally, and Eleseus can be all on the surface again, young and witty as he pleases.
"What have you done with Axel?" asks Sivert.
"Oh, he's about the place somewhere," she answers, pulling herself up.
"And so we'll not be seeing you this way any more, I doubt?" she asks
Eleseus.
"It's hardly probable," says he.
"Ay, 'tis no place for one as is used to the town. I only wish I could go along with you."
"You don't mean that, I know."
"Don't mean it? Oh, I've known what it is to live in town, and what it's like here; and I've been in a bigger town than you, for that matter—and shouldn't I miss it?"
"I didn't mean that way," says Eleseus hastily. "After you being in
Bergen itself and all." Strange, how impatient she was, after all!
"I only know that if it wasn't for having the papers to read, I'd not stay here another day," says she.
"But what about Axel, then, and all the rest?—'twas that I was thinking."