Three days before the wedding a grand travelling-carriage drawn by four horses rolled through the streets of the town of X——, and from the prodigious clatter which it made drew all the inquisitive among the inhabitants to their windows.
"Did you see, dear sister," cried the general shopkeeper Madame Suur to Madame Bask, the wife of the postmaster, "the grand travelling-carriage that has just gone by? Did you see the sweet youth that sate on the left and looked so genteel, with his snow-white neck and open shirt-collar? Lawk! how he looked at me—so sweet as he was! How like a real prince he looked!"
"Dear sister!" answered the postmistress, "then you did not see the gentleman who sate on the right? He was a grand gentleman, that I can positively assert! He sate so stately leaning back in the carriage, and so wrapped up in grand furs that one could not see the least bit of his face. Positively he is a great somebody!"
"I got a shimmer of the youth," said the grey-brown handed and complexioned Annette P——, as she glanced up from her coarse sewing, with such a look as probably a captive casts who has glanced out of his prison into a freer and more beautiful state of existence; "he looked so calm, with large blue eyes, out of the plate-glass windows of the carriage! as pure and grave he looked as one of God's angels!"
"Ay, we know to be sure how the angels look!" said the postmistress, snubbingly, and with a severe glance at Annette; "but that's absolutely all one! Yet I should like to know what grandees they are. I should not be a bit surprised if it were his royal highness or gracious crown-prince, who with his eldest son is travelling incondito through the country."
"Dear sister says what is true," returned Madame Suur. "Yes, it must be so! for he looked like a regular prince, the sweet youth, as he sate there and glanced at me through the window; really, he smiled at me!"
"Nay, my ladies, we've got some genteel strangers in the city!" exclaimed Mr. Alderman Nyberg as he came into the room.
"Have they stopped here?" cried both ladies at once.
"My wife saw the carriage draw up and——"
"Nay, heaven defend us! Mr. Alderman what are you thinking about that you don't make a stir in the city and send a deputation to wait upon them? For goodness sake let the city-council come together!"