The captain gave a poke at his wig: "When one goes a-courting, Ma," he said, smiling.
Two mail days later he came home from the post-office with a long letter from Aunt Alette to Ma. She was not a favorite of his. In the first place she was too "well read and cultured;" in the second place she was "sweet;" lastly, she was an old maid.
He seated himself in an armchair, with his arms folded before him, to have it read to him. He plainly regarded it as a bitter document.
My dear Gitta,—It is no easy task, but really a rather complicated and difficult one, you have laid upon the shoulders of an old maid, even if she is your never failing, faithful Aunt Alette. If we could only have talked together, you would have soon guessed my meaning; but now there is no other way for me to free my conscience than to write and write, till it has all come out that I have on my mind.
Now you know well enough that the governor's wife is not in my line, and if it had not been for what you wrote me when you sent Inger-Johanna here, I certainly should not have moved my old limbs so far out of the old town where I have my circle of firm friends, and gone in to make formal calls at the governor's, notwithstanding she is always excessively friendly and means it, too, I dare say.
First and foremost, I must tell you that Inger-Johanna is a lady in every respect, but still with more substance to her, if I may express myself so, and stronger will than our poor Eleonore. It is certain that she in many ways overawes, not to say domineers over, your sister-in-law, strict and domineering as she otherwise has the reputation of being. And, therefore, she must resort to underhand means in many things, when she finds that it won't do to play the game openly before Inger-Johanna, which, according to my best convictions, has been the case with regard to the captain. He certainly came here this time from his trip to Paris with the full intent of completing his courting, after, like a wise and prudent general, having first surveyed the ground with his own eyes. Simply the manner in which he always addressed and paid his respects to her would have convinced a blind person of that.
The only one, however, who does not understand it, notwithstanding she is besieged in a thousand ways, is the object of his attentions herself. She sits there in the midst of the incense, truly protected against the shrewdness of the whole world by her natural innocence, which is doubly surprising, and, old Aunt Alette says, to be admired in her who is so remarkably clever.
I will not, indeed, absolve her from being a little giddy at all the incense which he and your sister-in-law incessantly burn before her (and what elderly, experienced person would not tolerate and forgive this in a young girl!) But the giddiness does not tend to the desired result, namely, the falling in love, but only makes her a little puffed up in her feeling of being a perfect lady, and is limited to her doing homage to him as the knightly cavalier and—her father's highly honored friend.
It is this, which he, so to speak, is for the present beaten back by, so he is going abroad again, and this evidently after consultation with your sister-in-law. Inger-Johanna, if my old eyes do not deceive me,—and something we two have seen and experienced, both separately and together, in this world, dear Gitta,—is not found ready for the matrimonial question, inasmuch as her vanity and pride have hitherto appeared as a feeling entirely isolated from this.