But when, one day, the Consul--very thoughtfully--made her a present of one of his old travelling trunks, she let her large, heavy person sink down upon its lid, completely overwhelmed.

She could not bring herself to think, had never believed, that the day would come when she must part from her mistress and Ludvig and Lizzie--it would kill her! This was a direct appeal to the Consul himself, but the answer was not exactly as Barbara wished.

He patted her on the shoulder, saying: "I'm glad, my dear Barbara, that you feel that you have been well off." When she went into the Consul's office for a settlement and to receive her savings-bank book--the amount it contained was a hundred and fourteen specie-dollars, a result, the Consul said, with which she ought to be thoroughly satisfied, when she considered the great expense she had been put to with Nikolai--she declared her intention of resting for a time before she went out to service again, and had made arrangements to lodge with a farmer out in the country: she had now been toiling for others for fourteen years! The last evening, which she had dreaded so, went more easily than she had expected.

The Consul and his wife were invited to the Willocks' country-house in the afternoon with the children, so the farewell could only be a short one, before they got into the carriage.
She was left standing with the feeling of Lizzie's soft fur, which she had stroked, in her fingers..