She had come with her young heart swelling with bright hopes. She had learnt from her novels, and the theatres, that the flower of Danish womanhood was to be found in the daughters of the country Parsonages, whose charms had been sung by the poets, and whose possession all noble-minded young men desired. Nor was she entirely unconscious of her own advantages—her white skin and rippling auburn hair had already, as a schoolgirl, attracted attention in her native town in Jutland, so she went about every day in silent, sweet expectation, prepared to receive the homage which was her due.
She still remembered plainly, how in those days she wandered about the garden with her hair in a thick plait, hanging down her back, light kid mittens, and a fresh moss rose in her bosom.
At one time she would sit dreaming in the shade of a softly sighing tree, at another she would climb the dyke by the field, and shading her eyes with her hands, would look out into the sunlit landscape—as if every day she really expected two wandering "Students" to appear on the horizon.[1] She pictured to herself exactly what they looked like, how—dusty and sunburnt—they would peep inquisitively in at the garden gate, and how her father would appear on the verandah and ask them in; how at first they
- ↑ This refers to one of Johan Ludwig Heiberg's (1791–1860) Vaudevilles, "The adventures of a walking tour," always much played in Denmark, in which the heroes are two students.
