At the same moment the young man’s glance met Rebecca’s, and she instantly lowered her eyes. But he stopped the driver, and cried, “Let us remain here!”
“Hush!” said the older lady, with a low laugh. “This won’t do, Mr. Lintzow; this is the Parsonage.”
“It doesn’t matter,” cried the young man, merrily, as he jumped out of the carriage. “I say,” he shouted backward towards the other carriages, “sha’n’t we rest here?”
“Yes, yes,” came the answer in chorus; and the merry party began at once to alight.
But now the gentleman on the back seat rose, and said, seriously: “No, no, my friends! this really won’t do! It’s out of the question for us to descend upon the clergyman, whom we don’t know at all. It’s only ten minutes’ drive to the district judge’s, and there they are in the habit of receiving strangers.”
He was on the point of giving orders to drive on, when the Pastor appeared in the door-way, with a friendly bow. He knew Consul Hartvig by sight—the leading man of the town.
“If your party will make the best of things here, it will be a great pleasure to me; and I think I may say that, so far as the view goes—”
“Oh no, my dear Pastor, you’re altogether too kind; it’s out of the question for us to accept your kind invitation, and I must really beg you to excuse these young madcaps,” said Mrs. Hartvig, half in despair when she saw her youngest son, who had been seated in the last carriage, already deep in a confidential chat with Ansgarius.
“But I assure you, Mrs. Hartvig,” answered the Pastor, smiling, “that so pleasant an interruption of our solitude would be most welcome both to my daughter and myself.”
Mr. Lintzow opened the carriage-door with a formal bow, Consul Hartvig looked at his wife and she at him, the Pastor advanced and renewed his invitation, and the end was that, with half-laughing reluctance, they alighted and suffered the Pastor to usher them into the spacious garden-room.