“No,” she said vehemently, “Kristin must come up.”
For some time past Hedvig had made her own bed. She could not bear Frida to touch anything of hers. She seemed to shiver as in a cold draught and her teeth began to chatter as soon as the plump, laughing hussy came near her. But the maid did not pay her back in the same coin. The excellent Frida had no stiff-necked pride. With a mixture of good nature and bad conscience she only became more servile. “Kristin? very well.”
Humming softly as usual she vanished down the stairs.
Laura yawned, stretched herself lazily and shook her fair hair. For all her laziness her arch eyes sparkled. She was not in the least like her elder sister:
“You really are mad, Hedvig,” she said, jumping out of the bed.
Then Kristin came puffing and muttering up the stairs. Her old black frock had not shrunk as she herself had done, and it seemed almost empty when she sank down on the edge of the bed. Her hands twitched and trembled as if they had gone to sleep in her lap and were dreaming of knitting needles.
“Well, Hedvig, do you know your catechism, so that we need not be ashamed of you?”
Laura came up, stark naked, with a lather of soap on her neck:
“Know her catechism? when she is overflowing with it!”
The old woman had no smile for this fresh, plump young thing.