"And now," wrote her father, "what further objection can there be? You love Niels Fürst? If there is any condition which you wish to make in regard to your marriage, name it, my child. The consideration which you and I possess demands that you should be married in accordance with our position in your native town."
Milla complied. If her dear mother's favourite clergyman, old Dean Green, who had carried her mother's gift to the school, would perform the ceremony, he himself, her father, might fix the wedding-day at once. So old Green, the most respected man in the town, was to give his countenance to their side? The Consul felt that this was highly improbable. He wrote to Niels Fürst, that now he had but little hope.
Fürst was not of the same opinion. Most old people incline towards compromise. He gave some instructions to his brother-in-law, and, after the latter had paid a visit to the Dean, Fürst wrote to the Consul that, after all, things might be more hopeful than he had imagined. The Consul was off at once. It may well be that he was astonished when the old man said decidedly that the attacks on the school ought now to end. A peculiar smile passed over the Consul's face as he lamented that he did not possess sufficient influence. The old man met smile with smile; there was no need for influence, he believed. And thus the matter rested.
It was on a Friday morning that printed invitations were sent out to Consul Engel's friends, in this and the neighbouring towns, asking them to honour him by their presence at his daughter's marriage with Lieutenant Niels Fürst.
The wedding was fixed for the following Monday week, at four o'clock in the afternoon, at the Cross Church. It was being hurried on.
To a few of his oldest friends the Consul added in writing that the spiritual guide of his family, his beloved wife's friend, Dean Green, would do the young people the honour of uniting them.
On the same day, about dinner-time, the Consul walked along the quays just as all the business men were coming to, or from, them. Every one greeted him with beaming faces and with great cordiality, and those who were sufficiently intimate pressed his hand laughingly.
Every one had been annoyed that Rendalen should wish to prescribe who was or was not to marry--precisely like Max Kurt in the old days--he, a miserable fellow, crippled with debts, with a great school which might tumble about his ears any day. The news of the wedding, and that Dean Green was to perform the ceremony, was carried by Saturday's steamers up and down the coast; it sprang ashore on the islands, was heard at the watering-places, and slipped away through the woods far inland. It brought excitement everywhere. One party rejoiced; the other was immensely scandalised. But there was not a woman in either party who did not declare that she should go to the town for the day to see it all. The children begged to go too. Mimic weddings took place in the "Groves" and about on the rocks, where an old Dean Green, in a short frock and with bare arms, intoned the service over the bridal pair in a trembling voice.
Somewhat more laggardly the news came that the donor of the five thousand kroner to the new school had withdrawn his gift; that Consul Engel had condemned all the uproar about the school; if it were carried further, he would be obliged to support the recipients of his wife's legacy: her memory demanded no less of him.
Had a compromise been effected? Was Milla to return home as the Angel of Peace?