Gerda, left alone, stood looking defiantly straight ahead, while she cut the air with her yellow stick.
There was a moment of silence, and then the thin voice of the twelve-year-old floated up from the other end of the garden, singing:
“You ask me, my lad, What I want with the withered flower—”
Niels understood their teasing perfectly, for he had recently made Gerda a present of a book with a dried vine leaf from the garden in Verona which contains Juliet’s grave. He could hardly keep from laughing; but just then the woman returned with her husband, whom she had at last found, and Niels had to give the order for the carpenter work he had come to see about.
From that day Niels observed Gerda more closely, and every time he saw her he felt more keenly how sweet and fine she was. As time went on, his thoughts turned more and more frequently to this confiding little girl.
She was very lovely, with the tender, appealing beauty that almost brings tears to the eyes. Her figure, in its early ripening, retained something of the child’s roundness, which gave an air of innocence to her luxuriant womanhood. The small, softly-moulded hands were losing the rosy color of adolescence, and were without any of the restless, nervous curiosity often seen at that age. She had a strong little neck, cheeks that were rounded with a large, full line, and a low, dreamy little woman’s forehead, where great thoughts were strangers and almost seemed to hurt when they came, bringing a frown to the thick brows. And her eye—how deep and blue it lay there, but deep only as a lake where one can see the bottom; and in the soft corners the smile brooded happily under lids that were lifted in slow surprise. This was the way she looked, little Gerda, white and pink and blonde, with all her short, bright hair demurely gathered into a knot.
They had many a talk, Niels and Gerda, and he fell more and more in love with her. Open and frank and chivalrous was his regard, until a certain day there came a change in the air about them, a gleam of that which is too imponderable to be called sensuousness and yet is of the senses, that which impels the hand and mouth and eyes to reach out for what the heart cannot get close enough to its own heart. And another day, not long after, Niels went to Gerda’s father, because Gerda was so young, and because he was so sure of her love. And her father said yes, and Gerda said yes.
In the spring they were married.
It seemed to Niels Lyhne that existence had grown wonderfully clear and uncomplicated, that life was simple to live and happiness as near and easy to win as the air he drew in with his breath.