holiday time," the housekeeper retorted with considerable asperity.
"But one can't very well drive him away," pleaded Mamselle Lovisa. "And now, Maja, please put the coffeepot on, so that he'll have something to warm him a bit after his long, cold drive."
"Why must he always come just when you've all had your coffee and the fire's gone dead in the stove! The housekeeper looked as if she were not going to make a move.
But the coffeepot must have got on somehow, for shortly afterward the housemaid went down to the office and bade Colour-Sergeant von Wachenfeldt come to the living room for coffee.
In crossing the yard to the house, he walked with the aid of a cane, which he put by in the outer hall, and carried himself fairly well as he came into the room. Mamselle Lovisa, who stood there to receive him, noticed all the same that he had difficulty in walking. When she took his hands she felt how swollen they were, and when she looked up into his face, his distorted eye stared at her horribly. Then a good part of her resentment vanished. She thought to herself that he had already received his punishment, and she was not going to add woe to woe.
"It was nice that Wachenfeldt could come to us again this Christmas," she forced herself to say. Whereupon she poured him some coffee and he went over to his accustomed place, between the porcelain stove and the
