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Johanna Sjoberg, who does clear starching, recognised him down at the masked ball at the fair; she told me so herself." "You can just fancy," struck in Jakobina, "what a number of fine people come to the rooms in that way. You think you are only waltzing with a common man, and perhaps it is the son of the richest man in the town!
"And so, when the cat's away the mice will play," continued Jakobina. It was pretty well known that the smith came there for Silla's sake, and her vexation at her three friends having got tickets, and not her, filled her with spiteful gaiety. "Silla has taken a little trip into the town, too!" she added, laughing. "Silla!" "Yes, why shouldn't she? Mrs.
Holman is sitting in the cold down there at a stall, kicking and stamping her feet; why shouldn't her daughter do the same at the fair ball?" Jakobina was great at saying witty things "especially when she perhaps has some one who will both dance with her and treat her," she said, letting off another shot, as Nikolai seemed to be struck dumb. "Who's put that lie into your head, girl?"
The one she cared about, and had a mother's feeling for, was this He did not know whether he had thought the name himself, or whether Jakobina had said it; but it rang in his ears like the stroke of a hammer on a shining anvil, as he rushed down: "Ludvig Veyergang!" He had robbed him of his mother from his earliest childhood. Was he going to drag Silla away from him too?
She went about there with a suppressed longing and eager interest, her eyes sparkling, in the midst of all the chattering, whispering and gossiping among her different ideals Kristofa and Gunda, active Swedish Lena, and pert Jakobina. If she could not be with them herself, she might at any rate hear what fun they had had, and all that had happened.
The thought at last became too impossible, and he slackened his pace. That Jakobina was always so full of gossip and lies! This about Silla was all nonsense! There was nothing so dreadful in the three girls having taken a trip down to see a little of the fair; and they made that sharp-tongued Jakobina, whom they did not want to have with them, think they were all three going to the ball.
No, it was that Jakobina Silla had been so much with in the summer. There would at any rate be no harm in asking her. "Isn't Mrs. Holman at home this evening?" he asked, taking off his cap. "No; she's down at the fair, helping sell." The inference flashed with a passionate joy upon Nikolai; then he would be able to go in and see Silla.
She sat there among the youngest; her fingers worked among the spools, and now and then she looked up like a bird. They had got over the angry dispute about Josefa's new braided jacket. She need not try to persuade any one that she had got the money from her stepmother; no, let any one who liked believe that, but neither Gunda nor Jakobina did!
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