Almost before the stulkjarre had stopped, Ragna was out over the wheel, embracing them all in turn, laughing and trying to answer a dozen questions at once.
Fru Andersen held her daughter at arm's length, to see her better.
"It is my 'little' Ragna no longer," she wailed. "You are taller than I, and you have changed, dear—you went away a child, you come back a woman!"
Her husband interrupted her, calling for the servants to take in Ragna's luggage, and the good woman's further comments, if there were any, were lost in the bustle that ensued.
CHAPTER VI
The days that followed were occupied with filling in the gap of the past two years. All had much to ask, and Ragna was kept busy answering their questions. Fru Andersen and Fru Boyesen were most interested in the life at the convent, and the latter especially examined Ragna thoroughly as to the studies pursued and the accomplishments acquired.
The sisters, Lotte and Ingeborg, wished to hear about the Prince,—a Prince being to them almost as mythical a being as the old gods they had read of in their mythology; they imagined him robed in ermine, his manly brow decorated by a coronet. They never tired of returning to the subject, but were much disappointed by Ragna's matter of fact story, and the Prince lost much of his prestige in their eyes when they learned that he dressed and spoke like an ordinary mortal.
"And you talked to him just as if he were one of us?" asked Lotte in an awe-struck voice. "You really did and you were not a bit scared, not one bit?"
"Of course not, you silly little goose!" laughed Ragna, as if conversation with princes were an everyday occurrence to her. She was not above airing her recently acquired graces before these country mice.