Chapter 44

"Ah! wonderfully beautiful is God's earth, and worthy it is to live contented."--HÖLTY.

We now return to the hall in Funen, to the family which we left there; but autumn and winter are gone whilst we have been lingering on the past. Otto and Wilhelm have been two months away. It is the autumn of 1832.

The marriage of the Kammerjunker and Sophie was deferred, according to her wish, until the second of April, because this day is immortal in the annals of Denmark. In the house, where there now were only the mother, Louise, and Eva, all was quiet. Through the whole winter Eva had become weaker; yet she did not resemble the flowers which wither; there was no expression of illness about her-- it was much more as if the spiritual nature overpowered the bodily; she resembled an astral lamp which, filled with light, seems almost resembled be an ethereal existence. The dark-blue eyes had an expression of soul and feeling which attracted even the simple domestics at the hall. The physician assured them that her chest was sound, and that her malady was to him a riddle. A beautiful summer, he thought, would work beneficially upon her.

Wilhelm and Otto wrote alternately. It was a festival-day whenever a letter came; then were maps and plans of the great cities fetched out, and Louise and Eva made the journey with them.

"To-day they are here, to-morrow they will be there," cried they.

"How I envy them both, to see all these glorious things!" said Louise.

"The charming Switzerland!" sighed Eva. "How refreshing the air must be to breathe! How well one must feel one's self there!"

"If you could only go there, Eva," said Louise, "then you would certainly get better."

"Here all are so kind to me; here I am so happy!" answered she. "I am right thankful to God for it. How could I have hoped for such a home as this? God reward you and your good mother for your kindness to me. Once I was so unhappy; but now I have had a double repayment for all my sorrow, and all the neglect I have suffered. I am so happy, and therefore I would so willingly live!"

"Yes, and you shall live!" said Louise. "How came you now to think about dying? In the summer you will perfectly recover, the physician says. Can you hide from me any sorrow? Eva, I know that my brother loves you!"

"He will forget that abroad!" said Eva. "He must forget it! Could I be ungrateful? But we are not suited for each other!" She spoke of her childhood, of long-passed, sorrowful days. Louise laid her arm upon her shoulder: they talked till late in the evening, and tears stood in Louise's eyes.

"Only to you could I tell it!" said Eva. "It is to me like a sin, and yet I am innocent. My mother was so too--my poor mother! Her sin was love. She sacrificed