She is a little square woman, between fifty and sixty, with a ruby button of a nose, hair, that oil and age has robbed of its brilliant red, drawn smoothly back into a tight screw at the back of her broad head. Her eyes are a fishy green gray, the left eyelid droops; when she thinks you are not looking, a sly elusive gleam brightens them, her pursed lips loosen, and if you happen to see it, you think that there may be something after all in the stories the gossips whisper of Marie Larsen. Her dress is exquisitely neat, her apron snowy. No one in the district can make such a _suprême_ of fish as Marie; no one can beat her at roasting a capercailzie and serving it with sour cream sauce, or brew such caudles and possets for a lying-in, or bake such meats for a funeral feast. And what if there be an old-time tale of a brat accidentally smothered? And what if the Amtmanden (superior magistrate), he who had the sickly wife, did send Marie to Germany to learn cooking? Well, he had money to spare, and was always freehanded. And if Nils Pettersen did write home and say that he saw her in Hamburg at a trade--well, other than cooking, sure Nils Pettersen was a bit of a liar anyhow, and good cooking covers a multitude of frailties. And if her nose was red and her breath smelt of cloves, who could say they ever saw her buy a bottle of akavit,--and that was more than could be said of all the other temperance leaguers. She had a nice cottage, with marigolds and curly-mint and none-so-prettys nodding down the garden paths; and if you went inside it was very respectable, and you could not fail to notice the large brass-bound Bible on a crochet-square on top of the mahogany chest of drawers, with a sprig of palm marking the gospel of the previous Sunday. And no one answered the responses more loudly, or confessed more openly at revival times, or quoted Scripture more aptly to the confusion of a neighbor than Jomfru Marie Larsen. And then she had seen life too, and told them round the oven in winter over a cup of good coffee "tales that were human," just to warn them what risks they might run if they should be tempted to stray to the ungodly cities of the wicked world outside. She stands and smiles at him. "Arcades ambo! Blackguards both!" quotes he, pointing to a glass. She pours him out a measure and blinks, and fills a wine-glass with raw spirit for herself, and clinks glasses and sips like a connoisseur; and then she takes out her knitting and sets the needles flying. So they sit awhile; his last grand charge has taxed him, but the quiet maddens him. "Where's the Frue?" he asks, "the Frue?" She lays her head sideways on her hand and closes her eyes, saying in English: "No can have Fruen; she sick, no can have her; be good, Marie tell you a tale."