'Many thanks,' said I. 'But tell me about yourselves. So your poor husband is gone--that must have been a sad loss--a sad grief to you.'
'Ah, yes!' she replied, with tears in her eyes; 'but that was not the only one. Did you see my daughter?'
'Yes,' I answered; 'she seemed to me a little strange.'
'She is quite deranged,' she exclaimed, bursting into tears. 'She has to be watched constantly, and I am obliged to keep a woman to look after her. To be sure she spins a little--but she has scarcely time to do anything, for she has to be after poor Cecil at every hour of the day, when her thoughts fall upon Esben.'
'Where is Esben?' I asked.
'In God's kingdom,' she answered, solemnly. 'So you did not ask her about him? Oh, Lord, have mercy on us! He came to a dreadful end, nobody ever heard of such a frightful thing. But pray make yourself at home--you can eat and drink while you are listening. Ay, ay, sad things have happened since you were here. And times are also very hard--business is extremely dull, and we have to employ strangers now to carry it on.'
When I saw that her regret for past comforts mingled with her sorrow for present evils, and that neither were too great to prevent her relating her misfortunes, I took courage and asked her about them. She gave me a history, which, with the permission of my readers, I will repeat in the narrator's own simple and homely style. After having drawn a chair to the table, and taken up her knitting, she began:
'Kjeld Esbensen and ourselves have been neighbours since my first arrival here. Kjeld's Esben and our Cecil became good friends before anyone knew anything about it. My husband was not pleased, nor I neither, for Esben had nothing, and his father but little. We always thought that the girl would have had more pride, or more prudence than to dream of throwing herself away on such a raw lad. It is true he travelled about with a little pack, and made a few shillings; but how far would these go? He came as a suitor to Cecilia, but her father said No, which was not surprising, and thereupon Esben set off to Holstein. We observed that Cecil lost her spirits, but we did not think much of that--'She is sure to forget him,' said my good man, 'when the right one comes.'
'It was not long before Mads Egelund--I don't know if you ever saw him--he lives a few miles from this--he came and offered himself with an unencumbered property, and three thousand dollars a-year. That was something worth having. Michel immediately said Yes; but Cecil, God help her! said No. So her father was very angry, and led her a sad life. I always thought he was too hard upon her, but the worthy man would take no advice; he knew what was best, and he, and the father of Mads, went to the clergyman to publish the banns. All went well for two Sundays, but on the third one, when he said, "If any of you know cause or just impediment why these two persons should not be joined together in holy matrimony, ye are to declare it," Cecil rose abruptly and cried out, "I do; the banns for Esben and myself have been published three times in Paradise."
'I tried to hush her, but it was too late; every soul in church had heard her, and had turned to stare at our seat. We were put to dreadful shame and mortification! I did not then imagine she was out of her mind; but when the clergyman had left the pulpit, she began again, and raved about Esben and Paradise, her wedding and her wedding-dress, till we were obliged to take her out of church. My good Michel scolded her well, and declared that it was all a trick; but, God help us! there was no trick in it. It was all sad reality--she was insane then, and she is insane now.'