be seen at a glance by turning them upside down. On the bottom of each chair was the portrait of its owner. On one was Johan, a boy in blue with a long riding whip in his hand; on another posed Anna, a dainty little maid in a red frock and yellow leghorn hat—sniffing at a nosegay; while on the third was Selma, a tiny tot in a blue dress and striped apron, but with nothing in her hand and nothing on her head.
Now these portraits had been painted there to show to whom the chairs belonged, and the children regarded them as their property in quite a different sense from wearing apparel and other things they received from their parents. Their clothes travelled from one to another, and their nice toys were either locked away or set up on the corner bracket in the parlour; but the chairs, which bore their likenesses—who would have thought of depriving them of these?
Therefore, it was awfully mean of Back-Kaisa to put all three chairs on top of the high birch-wood bureau, as she did sometimes, so that the children could not get at them. What if she had but just scrubbed the nursery and the little chairs would leave ugly marks on the wet floor if trailed across it? The former nursemaid never would have had the heart to take the chairs away from them. No, not even for a moment.
Fru Lagerlöf saw, to be sure, that the maid did not understand her little ones and that they were afraid of her. But Back-Kaisa had been hired for a year, and Fru Lagerlöf could not very well send her away before
