——silently as Egypt's priests
They move.
Look, Cousin Louise, towards the corner, in the west there lies Oestanvik. If it would give you any pleasure to make a little tour there, I would beg that I might drive you there in my new landau. I really think, Cousin Louise, that Oestanvik would please you: the peaches and the vines are just now in full bloom; it is a beautiful sight.
A deep sigh is heard.
She. Who sighs so?
A Voice. Somebody who is poor, and who now, for the first time, envies the rich.
He. Oh rich! rich! God forbid! rich I am not exactly. One has one's competency, thank God! One has wherewith to live. I can honestly maintain myself and a family. I sow two hundred bushels of wheat; and what do you think, Cousin Louise—but where is Cousin Louise?
A Voice. It seemed to her, no doubt, as if a cold wind came over here from Oestanvik.
At the moment when the gentlemen returned to the room, a girl came into the balcony. She was alone. The misfortunes of the evening depressed her heart, and were felt to be so much more humiliating because they were of such a mean kind. Some burning tears stole quickly and silently over her cheeks. The evening wind kissed them gently away. She looked up to heaven; never had it seemed to her so high and glorious. Her soul raised itself, mounted even higher than her glance, up to the mighty friend of human hearts; and He gave to hers a presentiment that a time would come, when, in his love, she would be reconciled to and forget all adversities of earth.
The days at Axelholm wore on merrily amid ever-varying delights. Petrea wrote long letters, in prose and in verse, to her sisters at home, and imparted to them all that occurred here. Her own misfortunes, which she even exaggerated, she described in such a comic manner that those very things which were at first distressing to her, were made a spring of hearty merriment both to herself and to her family.