“Oh, yes!” cried Miss Louisa, who was certain to be one of the bridesmaids.
“But Sören says he can’t afford it,” answered the bride elect, somewhat timidly.
“Can’t afford it!” repeated Miss Ludvigsen. “To think of a young girl using such an expression! If you’re going to let your new-born love be overgrown with prosaic calculations, what will be left of the ideal halo which love alone can cast over life? That a man should be alive to these considerations I can more or less understand—it’s in a way his duty; but for a sensitive, womanly heart, in the heyday of sentiment!—No, no, Marie; for heaven’s sake, don’t let these sordid money-questions darken your happiness.”
“Oh, no!” cried Miss Louisa.
“And, besides,” Mrs. Olsen chimed in, “your fiancé is by no means so badly off. My husband and I began life on much less.—I know you’ll say that times were different then. Good heavens, we all know that! What I can’t understand is that you don’t get tired of telling us so. Don’t you think that we old people, who have gone through the transition period, have the best means of comparing the requirements of to-day with those of our youth? You can surely understand that with my experience of house-keeping, I’m not likely to disregard the altered conditions of life; and yet I assure you that the salary your intended receives from my husband, with what he can easily earn by extra work, is quite sufficient to set up house upon.”
Mrs. Olsen had become quite eager in her argument, though no one thought of contradicting her. She had so often, in conversations of this sort, been irritated to hear people, and especially young married women, enlarging on the ridiculous cheapness of everything thirty years ago. She felt as though they wanted to make light of the exemplary fashion in which she had conducted her household.
This conversation made a deep impression on the fiancée, for she had great confidence in Mrs. Olsen’s shrewdness and experience. Since Marie had become engaged to the Sheriff’s clerk, the Sheriff’s wife had taken a keen interest in her. She was an energetic woman, and, as her own children were already grown up and married, she found a welcome outlet for her activity in busying herself with the concerns of the young couple.
Marie’s mother, on the other hand, was a very retiring woman. Her husband, a subordinate government official, had died so early that her pension extremely scanty. She came of a good family, and had learned nothing in her girlhood except to Play the piano. This accomplishment she had long ceased to practise, and in the course of time had become exceedingly religious.——“Look here, now, my dear fellow, aren’t you thinking of getting married?” asked the Sheriff, in his genial way.
“Oh yes,” answered Sören, with some hesitation, “when I can afford it.
“Afford it!” the Sheriff repeated; “Why, you’re by no means so badly off. I know you have something laid by—”