"There's no hole there now, is there?" she asked, pointing one way. "Or
there?" But at last she missed her footing after all, and slipped down
into the hole where I was. And there we stood. It was not light there
anyway; and for her, coming straight in from the daylight outside, it must
have seemed quite dark. She felt about the edge, and said:

"Now, how am I to get up again?"

I lifted her up. It was no matter to speak of; she was slight of figure,
for all she had a big girl of her own.

"Well, I must say...." She stood shaking the earth from her dress. "One,
two, three, and up!--as neatly as could be.... Look here, I'd like you to
help me with something upstairs one day, will you? I want to move some
things. Only we must wait till a day when my husband's over at the annexe;
he doesn't like my changing things about. How long will it be before
you've finished all there is to do here?"

I mentioned a time, a week or thereabout.

"And where are you going then?"

"To the farm just by. Grindhusen's fixed it up for us to go and dig
potatoes there...."

Then came the work in the kitchen; I had to saw through the floor there.
Froken Elisabeth came in once or twice while I was there; it could hardly
have been otherwise, seeing it was the kitchen. And for all her dislike of
me, she managed to say a word or two, and stand looking at the work a