factory-girls, so that he scarcely
got more than the one glimpse and short nod from her before they turned
in now here, now there.

What did she want to go loitering about in the evening with those
dissipated girls for? Was that the sort of thing for Silla? She was
neither old enough nor wise enough to understand what she was getting
mixed up in, and what a fine gentleman meant who nodded to her--for the
sake of her pretty eyes. Amuse themselves? Yes, go round in the mill,
until they come out crushed and ground!

No! She must come out of this.

And so he must work away with his file, and add one week's earnings to
another, until he had made the silver hook large enough to draw her to
him.

Yes, once she was with him!--he forgot himself in thoughts about
house-rent and wedding outlay.

CHAPTER VIII

AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL

Some time after Nikolai had got his credentials, he was pleasantly
surprised by a visitor--he could hardly believe his own eyes--none other
than his mother, who was watching for him one Saturday afternoon,
outside the basement where he dined.

She had heard that he had become a journeyman, and could not rest until
she got a lift on one of the plank-loads which was going in to town, and
paid him a visit. She was so glad. If he knew how many sighs she had
heaved for his sake, and how many bitter tears she had shed--the big,
handsome, half peasant-clad woman was red in the face, and wept and
dried her eyes incessantly on her folded pocket-handkerchief, while she
gave expression to her emotion and joy over the way in which everything
had turned out, as if by special guidance.

She had been so unfortunate for a long time; but now that she had got
her son again, everything looked different for her. Oh, how big and
broad and fine he had grown--a regular smith! He had a frock-coat now
for Sundays, hadn't he? And he must have a hat, too. He must let her
advise him; she knew all about it from what she had seen in the world.

It was with quite strange, at first almost mixed, feelings that Nikolai
thus suddenly saw a mother fall down to him--some day a father might
come tumbling down too!

It was so many years since he had thought of her, and the picture he
really had of her was buried in the bitter salt slough of tears in the
depths of his recollections, which he was far from being in the mood to
stir up. There were things within him, which he avoided from an
instinctive feeling of safety in