meaning of it
all?"

She saw the eagerness of young girls to be married, and the air of
self-complacency with which young men offer to marry them; she thought
of her own experience, and felt as though she had been befooled.

But it was not right of Marie to think thus, for she had been
excellently brought up.

The view of life to which she had from the first been habituated, was
the only beautiful one, the only one that could enable her to preserve
her ideals intact. No unlovely and prosaic theory of existence had ever
cast its shadow over her development; she knew that love is the most
beautiful thing on earth, that it transcends reason and is consummated
in marriage; as to children, she had learned to blush when they were
mentioned.

A strict watch had always been kept upon her reading. She had read many
earnest volumes on the duties of woman; she knew that her happiness lies
in being loved by a man, and that her mission is to be his wife. She
knew how evil-disposed people will often place obstacles between two
lovers, but she knew, too, that true love will at last emerge victorious
from the fight. When people met with disaster in the battle of life, it
was because they were false to the ideal. She had faith in the ideal,
although she did not know what it was.

She knew and loved those poets whom she was allowed to read. Much of
their erotics she only half understood, but that made it all the more
lovely. She knew that marriage was a serious, a very serious thing, for
which a clergyman was indispensable; and she understood that marriages
are made in heaven, as engagements are made in the ballroom. But
when, in these youthful days, she pictured to herself this serious
institution, she seemed to be looking into an enchanted grove, with
Cupids weaving garlands, and storks bringing little golden-locked angels
under their wings; while before a little cabin in the background, which
yet was large enough to contain all the bliss in the world, sat the
ideal married couple, gazing into the depths of each other's eyes.

No one had ever been so ill-bred as to say to her: "Excuse me, young
lady, would you not like to come with me to a different point of view,
and look at the matter from the other side? How if it should turn out to
be a mere set-scene of painted pasteboard?"

Soeren's young wife had now had ample opportunities of studying the
set-scene from the other side.

Mrs. Olsen had at first come about her early an