chair. "It is most
extraordinary!" He took up his hat, said good-bye, and left the room.

The woman took Marianne's hands and folded them decently across her
breast; she then put her arms under the bedclothes and straightened the
legs, so that the corpse should not stiffen with the knees bent. The
mouth was slightly open. She shut it, but the chin fell again. Torpander
could see what the woman was looking for, and handed her his silk
handkerchief. How rejoiced he was that he had not used it! The woman
regarded the handkerchief suspiciously, but when she saw that it was
perfectly clean, she folded it neatly and tied it round Marianne's head.

Torpander stood gazing at the little weary face, bound round with his
lovely silk handkerchief, and he felt at length as if he had some part
in her. He had received her last look, her last smile, and as a reward
she had accepted his first and last gift. After all, his courtship had
had the best ending he could possibly have hoped for. He bent his head,
and wept silently in Abraham Lincoln's portrait.

Begmand came upstairs, and sat gazing at the body. Since the fire he had
not been altogether himself.

"Shall I go to Zacharias the carpenter, and order the coffin?" asked the
woman. But as she did not get any answer, she went off and ordered the
coffin on her own account. It was not to be any more ornamental than was
usual in the West End.

Meanwhile Pastor Martens was continuing his journey. Marianne's death
had made a most disagreeable impression upon him, which probably added
to his former ill humour.

The women, both old and young, were again on the look-out for him. A
clergyman was not often to be seen in West End. The boys, who had found
a dead cat on the shore, and which the eldest was dragging after him,
came marching along like little soldiers. Behind them followed a tiny
little creature not higher than one's knee, with his mother's wooden
shoes on his feet, and wearing a paper cap on his head. The whole band
was in high spirits, and sang with a ringing voice a national air,
according to the comic version which was in use in West End:

"Yes, we love our country;
Yes, indeed we do!
He who dares deny it,
We will let him know!"

The pastor had to pass the children, whose song went through his head.
The cat, of which he just caught a glimpse, was half putrid, and its
skin was hanging in rags. Parson Martens pressed his handkerchief to his
mouth;