again alive, on that dingy autumn morning. He had to be in the school before eight o'clock, and begin the work of the day with a prayer and a hymn. Yesterday his ordinary duties had scarcely entered his thoughts; but when the faint odour of the children's clothes as they came wet to school, their inharmonious singing, and that flagging indifference with which the school week opens after Saturday and Sunday's holiday, rose in his imagination, his everyday work appeared more than he could bear.
What was it to him? While he was sitting at his breakfast, and was just thinking of sending the maid down to the school to say he was unwell, a knock was heard at the door, and Dean Sparre entered the room. Johnsen at once endeavoured to recollect what he had yesterday arranged to say to the dean; but at that early hour, and in the presence of that perplexing smile, he might just as well have tried to sing "Lohengrin" without notes as to bring to his recollection his ideas of the day before.
The dean went straight to the point without any parley, but quite from a different point of view to which Johnsen had expected. He was of opinion, in fact, without making any further assumption, that Johnsen was in love with, and even perhaps engaged to, Rachel Garman, and that in his sermon of yesterday he had been expressing her ideas, which, although they were certainly original, were still somewhat distorted. At the same time, he was quite ready to allow that Miss Garman was no doubt a lady of first rate ability.
