Jeanné's face expressed the deepest grief while her mother was speaking; she wept, she wrung her hands, and at length she exclaimed:
'Oh, my dear mother! If you have considered what is best for me, have you not remembered that the fate for which you destine me will render me utterly miserable? It will be my death!'
'No, it will not, Jeanné! That is merely an idea peculiar to your age; people don't die so easily. Time is an excellent doctor for such wounds.'
'Who, then, have you chosen for me?'
'Major-General Gregers Daa, of Hald. He was with me to-day when you were out riding with your cousin; he asked for your hand, and obtained my consent to your marrying him.'
Major-General Gregers Daa was a tall, thin man, with a pallid face and very grave expression of countenance. His hair was beginning to turn grey, the numerous wrinkles on his expansive brow-were perhaps as much the consequence of deep thought as of advanced age, for both of these despots impose their marks in the same mode.
Gregers had held an important post, and had won many laurels in the last war. At the cessation of hostilities which followed the peace of Travendal, he returned to Jutland, purchased Hald, and had the palace rebuilt. When these two events were completed, he had nothing before him but a quiet, monotonous life, without interest to himself, and without affording happiness to any one. The landed proprietors who were his neighbours found no pleasure in his society, for he was cold and reserved in manners. The poor lauded his charity and his munificent donations; but these, in accordance with the nature of the donor, were dictated more by a sense of duty than by any positive satisfaction he had in relieving distress. No one sought his friendship; indeed, it was rather avoided. In the lonely situation in which he was placed, he was poor--for even fortune becomes a burden in utter solitude. The present time offered nothing, the future seemed to promise nothing, and the past was the repository of no cherished recollections for him.
When Gregers returned from the war, and had ceased to fight foreign foes, he found at home a still more obstinate foe to battle with, and that was ennui. A sister, much younger than himself, who had resided with him, and taken charge of his house, had died a few years before the date of the commencement of this story. He regretted her loss very much, and day by day he missed more and more the comforts a lady's taste and society had spread around him. It was about this time that he first met Jeanné Rysé, and the sight of her awakened emotions in his mind which he had never before known. He wished to have her in his lost sister's place; he wished to be her confidential friend, her counsellor, her companion, and, yielding to these growing wishes, he determined on asking from the Baroness the hand of her daughter. He had, however, not the most remote idea of the wretchedness with which his proposals were to blast Jeanné's hitherto tranquil and happy existence.
He was wealthy; he was the last--the only survivor of his race. Both of these considerations had also some weight in Gregers's resolution, and had not less influence on that of the Baroness Rysé. But expediency and good intentions sometimes merge into wrong, especially when they forget to take into account the passions and the heart. This fault was committed both by Gregers and the Baroness.
Eight days after her conversation with Jeanné, the Baroness Rysé's carriage was seen going towards the Hald, with running footmen before the horses, a coachman, and another servant, with powdered perukes; in short, with all that show and affectation of state which might lead the beholder to forget the Dutch plebeian Henrik Rysé, to whom the family owed their patent of nobility. The Baroness herself was elegantly dressed; she was one of those old beauties on whose exterior the hand of taste must replace what time has stolen away.