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348 . SKETCHES.
the winter, meat to be salted down, bread to be baked,
sausages and black-puddings to be made, candles to be
moulded, etc., etc. The autumnal gales came on, the bil-
lows roared and thundered against the rocks, the wind
howled round their dwelling, and the lights in the light-
house revolved with the same lights and the same shadows.
This eternal sameness had an almost suffocating effect
upon Ellina’s desponding mind.
Axel stayed away a long time, — much longer than was
required for placing the little boy. When he returned, he
brought with him three strange gentlemen as guests. Ellina
did not belong to the impossible women (read: impossible
women) who make impossibilities and grim faces, when
occasionally their husbands come home to dinner or sup-
per, bringing with them an unexpected guest. But three
at once, and at this moment too, when her heart was sore
and heavy and the larder empty—that was too much!
When Axel folded her warmly and affectionately in his
arms, she stood in this embrace cold and pale as the lily
in the mountain-cleft, and gave him no pressure of the
hand, no kiss in return. He turned therefore to his merry
guests, occupying himself with them. Ellina went out to
arrange about the supper and to prepare what else the new-
comers might require. Perchance husband and wife felt
dimly that it would not be good for them to be now left
alone together.
When the goblet is full, it wants only one drop more to
make it overflow. This drop came now to Ellina in the
shape of her help in house and kitchen, — Miss Unready,
the gentlest, most faithful, and also one of the most efficient
persons in the world, but who had a great inclination to
look at every thing from a tragic point of view, and who in
all emergencies always began by saying that “she knew of
no living means,” on account of which Ellina used to call
her in earnest and in jest, “my Miss Unready.” But as
Ellina herself always found out some ways and means, and
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