But where was she gone to?
She could not be found. They had hunted for her over the whole house.
But the captain was not impatient to-day.
"Well, then, don't you see her?" he mildly asked two or three times through the door.
At last Thea found her in the garret. She had taken refuge up there and hid herself, when she saw the express and heard that it was from the sheriff, in anticipation of the contents. And now she was sitting with her head on her arms and her apron over her head.
She had not been crying; she had been seized with a sort of panic; she felt an irresistible impulse to hide herself away somewhere and shut her eyes, so that it would be really dark, and she would not be obliged to think.
She looked a little foolish when she went down with Thea to her father and mother in the office.
"Thinka," said the captain, when she came in, "we have received to-day from the sheriff an important letter for your future. I suppose it is superfluous to say—after all the attention you have allowed him to show you during the year—what it is about, and that your mother and I regard it as the greatest good fortune that could fall to your lot, and to ours also. Read the letter and consider it well. Sit down and read it, child."
Thinka read; but it did not seem as if she got far; she shook her head dumbly the whole time without knowing it.
"You understand very well, it is not any youthful love fancy, and any such exalted nonsense that he asks of you. It is if you will fill an honored position with him that you are asked, and if you can give the good will and care for him which he would naturally expect of a wife."