“It is a regular confession that thou desirest,” replied she. “He is in love—that all young men are. Our cousin, I can tell thee, said many pretty things to me. Even the Kammerjunker flatters as well as he can, the good soul! I have now resolved with myself to be a reasonable girl. Believe me, however, Thostrup is in an ill humor!”
“If the Kammerjunker were to pay his addresses to you, would you accept him?” asked Louise, and seated herself upon her sister’s bed.
“What can make you think of such a thing?” inquired she. “Hast thou heard anything?—Thou makest me anxious! O Louise! I joke, I talk a deal; but for all that, believe me, I am not happy!”
They talked about the Kammerjunker, about Otto, and about the French cousin. It was late in the night. Large tears stood in Sophie’s eyes, but she laughed for all that, and ended with a quotation from Jean Paul.
Half an hour afterward she slept and dreamed; her round white arm lay upon the coverlet, and her lips moved with these words:
“With a smile as if an angel
Had just then kissed her mouth.” [Note: Christian Winther.]
Louise pressed her countenance on the soft pillow, and wept.
CHAPTER XXXIX
“A swarm of colors, noise and screaming,
Music and sights, past any dreaming,
The rattle of wheels going late and early,—
All draw the looker-on into the hurly-burly.”
TH. OVERSKOU.