"Yes, yes! or why else should he have called her 'my gracious cousin?' And one must confess that there is something refined and genteel about her—and such hands as she has have I never seen!"
"Hum! There's no art in looking genteel and having beautiful hands, when one goes about the house like a foolish thing, washing one's hands in rose-water, and all the livelong day doing not one sensible act. That I know well enough!"
"Yes, yes! they who will be of any use in their house cannot keep such hands, and sit the whole day and read romances! I should like to know how it would have gone with the blessed Suur's baking business—to which at last he added the grocery—if I had been a genteel lady! Not at all, because I should not have done it. Sweet sister, know that I once had my whims—yes, and a turn for scribbling and writing. Yes, so help me heaven! if it had not been for my little bit of sound sense, which showed me my folly in time, I might have become a regular learned lady, another—what do you call her?—Madame de Staël! But when I married the late Suur I determined to give up all that foolishness, and do honour to the baking; and now I have quite let my little talent slip away from me, so that it is as good as buried. But on that account I am, to be sure, no fitting company for the Franks—think only!—and shall be only less and less so, if they are always climbing higher and higher."
"Let them climb as high as they will, I don't intend to make obeisances before them, that I can promise them! that I absolutely will not! It vexes me enough that Annette is so mad after them. Before one is aware of it, they will be taking her away from me, skin and hair; and that's my thanks for all I have lavished upon her! But I'll tell the gentry that I'm positively determined to make no compliments to them or to their Excellencies, and that one person is just as good as another! Positively I'll tell them that!"
CHAPTER XIV.
THE EVENING BEFORE THE WEDDING.
"God bless the little ones! But when one considers how little of a rarity children are in this world, one has only to open one's mouth to say so, and people are all up in arms and make such a stir and such an ado about their little ones! Heart's-dearest! People may call them angels as much as ever they will, but I would willingly have my knees free from them! But worst of all is it with the first child in a family! Oh, it is a happiness and a miracle, and cannot be enough overloaded with caresses and presents from father and mother, and aunts and cousins, and all the world. Does it scream and roar—then it is a budding genius; is it silent—then it is a philosopher in its cradle; and scarcely is it eight days old but it understands Swedish and almost German also! And—it bites, the sweet angel!—it has got a tooth! It bites properly. Ah, it is divine! Then comes the second child:—it is by far less wonderful already; its cry and its teeth are not half so extraordinary. The third comes;—it is all over with miracles now! the aunts begin to shake their heads, and say, 'no lack of heirs in the house! Nay, nay, may there be only enough to feed them all.' After this comes a fourth, and a fifth, and a sixth—yes, then people's wits are set in full play! The parents resign themselves, but the friends defend themselves! Heart's-dearest, what is to become of it? The house full of children, there's soon a dozen of them! Poor Mrs. This and This—it makes one quite weak both in body and mind only to think of it! Yes, yes, my friends, people don't put these things down in romances, but it goes on in this way in real life! Yes!"
It was the Chamberlain's lady who preached this little sermon, in the zeal of her spirit, to the young couple who the next day were to be man and wife. She ate on this evening Whitsuntide-porridge[19] with the Franks, and all the while gave sundry lessons for the future. Jacobi laughed heartily over the history of the children, and endeavoured to catch Louise's eye; but this was fixed upon the Postillion, which she was arranging with a very important and grave aspect. The Judge and Elise looked smilingly on each other, and extended to each other their hands.
The state of feeling in the family, for the rest of the evening, was quite rose-coloured. Letters had been received from Petrea which gave contentment to all her friends, and Eva sate in the family circle with returning, although as yet pale roses on her cheeks. The Judge sate between Eva and Leonore, laying out on the map the plan of the summer tour. They would visit Thistedal, Ringerig, and Tellemark, and would go through Trondhiem to Norland, where people go to salute the midnight sun.