“Wait a moment. It’s very cold; let me light the fire.” Francesca lighted the lamp on the table.
“Why not call the signora? Oh, Cesca, come here, let me look at you.” Jenny sat up in bed.
Francesca placed the lamp on the table by the bed and turned slowly round in the light of it. She had put on a white blouse with her green skirt and thrown a striped scarf about her shoulders. Round her neck she wore a double row of deep red corals, and long, polished drops hung from her ears. She pulled her hair laughingly from her ears to show that the drops were tied to them by means of darning wool.
“Fancy, I got them for sixty-eight lire—a bargain, wasn’t it? Do you think they suit me?”
“Capitally! With that costume, too. I should like to paint you as you are now.”
“Yes, do. I can sit to you if you like—I’m too restless nowadays to work. Oh dear!” She sighed and sat down on the bed. “I had better go and bring the coal.”
She came back carrying an earthenware pot of burning charcoal, and stooped down over the little stove. “Stay in bed, dear, till it gets a little warmer in here. I will make the tea and lay the table. I see you have brought your drawing home. Let me have a look at it.” She placed the board against a chair and held the lamp to it.
“It is not too bad—what do you think? I am going to make a few more sketches out there. I am planning a big picture, you see—don’t you think it is a good subject, with all the working people and the mule-carts in the excavation field?”
“Very good. I am sure you can make something of it. I should like to show it to Gunnar and Ahlin. Oh, you are up! Let me do your hair. What a mass of it you have, child. May I do it in the new fashion?—with curls, you know.” Francesca pulled her fingers through her friend’s long, fair hair. “Sit quite still. There was a letter for you this morning. I brought it up. Did you find it? It was from your little brother, was it not?”
“Yes, very nice. You know, Cesca, sometimes—only on a Sunday morning once in a while—I wish I could fly home and go for a stroll in Nordmarken with Kalfatrus. He is such a brick, that boy.”
Francesca looked at Jenny’s smiling face in the glass. She took down her hair and began to brush it again.