look up, but she could not bring herself to it. When he at last released her hands, she stole a glance at her friend, with a sigh of relief,—she had been afraid that he would kiss her. At this moment the kitchen door was softly opened and her mother came in, in a freshly ironed cotton apron and a tight little black cap. At the first moment she was so ill at ease that, in trying to hide it, her greeting to Emanuel, and her whole bearing towards him, had an air of suspicious reserve.
Emanuel took her hand and said that he hoped the reason of his visit was known to her, and that neither she nor her husband would be afraid to trust Hansine's future to him. If they were favourable to him, he added, he would for the first time in his life feel perfectly happy.
Else answered by passing her hand sympathetically over Hansine's hair and cheek; then, as she was not a good hand at keeping silence on any subject which she had at heart, she said, "It certainly never entered our heads that anything of this sort would happen—nor can I say but that it is very strange to us. It's struck us all of a heap; for, as the saying has it, 'Like plays best with like,' 'The children of equals are the best playmates,' and you know Hansine has only been brought up as a simple peasant girl. I don't suppose your Reverence's family expected a daughter-in-law of that sort. One doesn't want one's daughter to be looked down on where
