And her own words echoed back to her as an answer:
"My womanhood would be buried with my girlhood."
Then she looked up and saw a carriage in the distance, in the far distance. The boy also saw it. As it approached nearer he said:
"It is from the Solli Gaard. That is Jens driving."
Katharine's heart gave a sudden bound.
"Haste, haste!" she said excitedly to the boy; and he, moved by her eagerness, urged on the little yellow pony, which rose to the occasion and flew over the ground.
Carriage and cariole drew up at the same moment, and Katharine saw face to face the man whom she loved.
"We came to fetch you," he said.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
Bedstefar had been dead for three days, and it had been arranged that the funeral was to take place a week after the night of his death. Preparations had been going steadily forward, interrupted only by the anxiety and excitement caused by Clifford's long absence in the mountains and his supposed death. Bedstemor herself had been much troubled about him, and had spent a good deal of time watching for him. But when he returned safely, she felt free to continue her persecutions in the kitchen; and it took a great amount of Knutty's craftiness to entice her into the porch and keep her there. Bedstemor was astonishingly well, seemed in excellent spirits, and in answer to questions as to how she felt, she always said briskly: