and mirth, the like of which she had never before
encountered, reigned around, although the guests imagined that they
put some restraint upon themselves that day, in deference to the
well-known strictness of the young wife.

Jacob Worse, on the other hand, who was accustomed to it, and who was
at his ease with them all, was well pleased, and nodded to her. She,
however, scarcely raised her eyes during the whole of the dinner, and
when they reached home, she announced to Worse that she felt as if
they had visited the very purlieus of hell itself.

"Oh, Sarah! how can you say such things! they are all really good,
kind people."

"No;" she said, sharply. "I suppose you know what a butt they made of
you?" This was the impression made upon her when the judge, or some
one else, had begged the honour of drinking a glass of wine with the
old captain and the young bridegroom.

She never went there again; from the first she was acute enough to
perceive that she could never get a footing in such society.
Moreover, these gay, light-hearted people, who laughed loudly and
drank the perilous wine, seemed almost fiendish to one who, from her
childhood, had been accustomed only to grave and serious
conversation.

Consul Garman constantly upbraided his sisters-in-law for not having
given him earlier information of Worse's relations with the Haugians,
for he fancied he could have cured him had he taken him in hand
before the evil had gained the mastery.

In the mean time, Worse appeared to be content, which was very well
so long as it lasted.

His loss was felt at Sandsgaard; and when he abandoned the sea and
relinquished the _Hope_ to others, the Consul gave him up as lost and
useless.

The Consul was now more lonely than ever; absorbed in melancholy, he
often paced up and down in the broad gravel paths by the pavilion in
the garden.

It stood by a pond, round which grew a dense border of rushes.
Formerly this pond must have been larger, for the Consul remembered
that in his childhood there had been water on both sides of the
building, and a bridge which could be drawn up. He had a dim
recollection of ladies in a blue and white boat, and a tall man in a
red silken jacket, who stood in the bow with an oar. Now, however,
the pond was so small that a boat would have looked ridiculous. The
Consul often wondered how it could have so diminished in size. It
must, he thought, be the rushes which encroached upon it; and
although he