She was most excited when she came to telling about the lady and her little boy, describing the way she talked, how she and the boy were dressed, and her aristocratic way.

But all at once 'Lizebeth jumped as if a wasp had stung her and she called out, "What do you say, Sally?
This woman wears a silk dress in the middle of the week?
Silk?
And she lives at Marianne's?
And the boy wears velvet pants and a jacket all of velvet?
Well, well! I have lived ten years with your great-grandfather and thirty with your grandfather and twelve with your father, and I have seen your father grow up from the first day of his life and your little brothers.

And I have known them since they were babies and none of them ever had velvet pants on their body, and yet they were all ministers, your great-grandfather, your grandfather, your father, and the little ones will be ministers too, and none of them ever had even a piece of velvet on them and this woman in the middle of the week walks about in silk, yes indeed! And then taking rooms at Marianne's and living where the basket mender has lived, I tell you, Sally, there is something behind that! But it has to come out, and if Marianne wants to help a hundred times to cover it up, I tell you, Sally, I will bring out what is behind it all.

Yes, indeed, velvet pants?
I wonder what we shall hear next!" Sally stood quite astounded before the anger-spouting 'Lizebeth, and could not understand the cause of this outbreak.

But she had enough of it, so she turned round and hastened into the sitting-room, where, according to her expectations, at the very last moment, just when 'Lizebeth came into the room with the soup tureen, the brothers appeared, in a peculiar way.