I have been with him in fairy-tale land, seen the sun set and the moon rise, seen the sun rise again and sink behind the woods, lighting with its glow the windows of the white village. But to me it seems that the twenty-four hours is a whole lifetime, where I have lived with him in a world created just for us two, furnished with all nature's loveliest gifts, and with a dear old peasant woman-fairy to do our bidding.
I pinch my arm to be sure I am not dreaming. No, it is no dream. On the table in front of me stands the bouquet of wild flowers the old woman gave me when we left, and near my bed are my boots with the marks of field and wood on them.
It happened like this: The day before yesterday father and mother went to Sorö to visit an old aunt, who yesterday was eighty years of age, and her son, who is master of the large public school there. They return to-morrow. When he heard of this, he said, 'Then we will also go for a journey.' Though at first I thought it was quite impossible and took it as a joke, it grew all the same into reality. After all, I philosophised, if the worst comes to the worst I can only be found out. I got Christiane to send me an invitation for a picnic to-day, with a preliminary visit to her home overnight, so that we, like eager young girls, might start with the dawn. To this arrangement the parents gave their consent and went off to the birthday in Sorö.
But yesterday afternoon, at six o'clock, two young
