Why, yes, she hoped so, anyway. Both her other daughters were in service, and doing well--thank God. Olga would be meeting them at church in the morning. There was a little cracked mirror hanging on one of the walls, on the other a few cheap prints had been tacked up--pictures of soldiers on horseback and royalties with a great deal of finery. One of these pictures is old and frayed. It is a portrait of the Empress Eugenie, and evidently not a recent purchase. I asked where it had come from. The good woman did not know. Must be something her husband had bought in his time. “Did he buy it here?” More likely 'twould have been at Hersæt, where he had been in service as a young man. Might be thirty years gone now. I have a little plan in my head already, and say: “That picture is worth a deal of money.” The woman thinks I am making game of her, so I make a close inspection of the picture, and declare emphatically that it is no cheap print--no. But the woman is quite stupid, and simply says: well, did I think so, now? The thing had hung there ever since the house was built. It was Olga's, by the way, she had called it hers from the time she was a little one. I put on a knowing, mysterious air, and ask for further details of the case--where Hersæt might be. Hersæt was in the neighbouring parish, some eight miles away. The Lensmand lived there.... The coffee is ready, and Olga and I call a halt. There are only the fastenings to be done now. I ask to see the blouse she is to wear with the skirt, and it appears that this is not a real blouse at all, but a knitted kerchief. But she has a left-off jacket that one of her sisters gave her, and that will go outside and hide all the rest. Olga is growing so fast, I am told, that there's no sense in buying a blouse for her this twelvemonth to come. Olga sits sewing on hooks and eyes, and that is soon done. Then she turns so sleepy, it's a sight to see; wherefore I put on an air of authority and order her to bed. Her mother feels constrained to sit up and keep me company, though I tell her myself to go back to bed again. “You ought to be properly thankful, I'm sure,” says the mother, “to the strange man for all the way he's helped you.” And Olga comes up to me and gives her hand to thank me, and I turn her round and shuffle her across to the bedroom door. “You'd better go too,” I say to her mother. “I won't sit talking any more, for I'm tired myself.” And, seeing I settle down by the stove with my sack under my head, she shakes her head with a smile and goes off too. XXIX I am happy and comfortable here; it is morning; the sun coming in through the window, and both Olga and her mother with their hair so smooth and plastered down, a wonder to see.