“You have so much to attend to,” said Gösta.
“Yes, that you may believe. If I were not everywhere, neither the loom nor the spinning-wheel would be going right. And if—”
Here she stopped and wiped away a tear from the corner of her eye.
“God help me, how I do talk!” she said; “they say that I won’t have anything more to look after. He is selling everything we have.”
“Yes, it is a wretched business,” said Gösta.
“You know that big mirror in the drawing-room, Gösta. It was such a beauty, for the glass was whole in it, without a flaw, and there was no blemish at all on the gilding. I got it from my mother, and now he wants to sell it.”
“He is mad.”
“You may well say so. He is not much better. He won’t stop until we shall have to go and beg on the highway, we as well as the major’s wife.”
“It will never be so bad as that,” answered Gösta.
“Yes, Gösta. When the major’s wife went away from Ekeby, she foretold misfortune for us, and now it is coming. She would never have allowed him to sell Björne. And think, his own china, the old Canton cups from his own home, are to be sold. The major’s wife would never have let it happen.”