She clapped her hands together. “Why, what shameless impudence! After my saying No, No, No, for days together. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t—I said it ever so many times. And you said it didn’t matter—for YOU WOULD. Yes, you took me most unfairly off my guard; but now look out for yourself.”
The next moment she flung her arms round his neck. But when he tried to kiss her, she pushed him away again. “No,” she said, “you mustn’t think I did it for that!”
Soon they were walking arm-in-arm along the country road, on their way to Aunt Marit at Bruseth. It was September, and all about the wooded hills stood yellow, and the cornfields were golden and the rowan berries blood-red. But there was still summer in the air.
“Ugh! how impossibly fast you walk,” exclaimed Merle, stopping out of breath.
And when they came to a gate they sat down in the grass by the wayside. Below them was the town, with its many roofs and chimneys standing out against the shining lake, that lay framed in broad stretches of farm and field.
“Do you know how it came about that mother is—as she is?” asked Merle suddenly.
“No. I didn’t like to ask you about it.”
She drew a stalk of grass between her lips.
“Well, you see—mother’s father was a clergyman. And when—when father forbade her to go to church, she obeyed him. But she couldn’t sleep after that. She felt—as if she had sold her soul.”
“And what did your father say to that?”