The Visionary: Pictures From Nordland

to start for Tronden?s in a vessel

sanna before I started, there came a message from the clerk to say that I must be sure t

been at the clerk's. Without saying a word, she sat

n his concern-for an explanation, she at length lifted up a tear-stained f

, dear S

, and he loves me, and we are engaged; but no one m

the stunned and bewildered clerk, who in his heart was already wo

two years of separation as trial years, and therefore, during that time, we ought not to write to one another. Only, he had to promise in return that we should

did not seem to disturb his reflections, although a little nod when I entered showed me that at any rate I was noticed. He swung his violin slowly backwards and forwards before his knees, with a gentle twang of the strings at each swing,

, and to my surprise Susanna came in. She came qui

everything; he has given us

nts, because Susanna begged so hard for it, and also that you may

ing our engagement to our parents was excusable, as they would scarcely even look at the matter as really serious, and we might feel hurt. He did not intend to be a receiver of secret love-letters, as Susanna had asked him, and

old clerk good-natu

and that that was the reason why he had never married, and had become so strange. Then in eager haste she drew out of her pocket-she still wore her old, short, blue-checked,

just that black one on the temple, that she had long had her eye upon, she said, and which she meant to keep in her confirmation locket. When I ask

, that when I became a student, I should give her a gold engagement ring with the inscription "David and Susanna" on one half of the inside,

f, "you are not lis

d that was, whether I dared give her a farewell kiss

t soon come to an end, and, to my disappointment, Susanna hastened to hide the presents, which I still held in my hand, i

ht that we were to part now struck her for the first time. She made a quick movement-she evident

ted it to her lips without sa

the old clerk too. He walked up and down, gently twanging his v

was twenty. It touched me deeply, because I felt as if it were written about

ed, and then-after a short pause as of sad recollection-"

chief was waved from the drawing-room window in the pars