"your angelic disposition and patience are
well known."

He well understood the smile with which his wife had accompanied her
words.

"Good Fabian, you know how to appreciate your wife!"

"Sweet Ulgenie!"

Gottlieb glanced from his aunt to his uncle.

"Strange people these," thought he. "I think they are playing bo-peep
with each other, or perhaps they are blinding me; well, I care not; so
long as they do not disturb me, I will not meddle with their affairs."

CHAPTER IV.

THE ATTIC-ROOMS.

As we have before stated, Nanna had supreme control over one of the
attic-rooms of the cottage, and for a long time it had been a sanctuary
in which she stored her precious things.

Old Mr. Lonner loved Nanna as the apple of his eye. She was not only the
youngest child, and consequently the favorite, but she also possessed
strong perceptive qualities, and a heart susceptible of the tenderest
emotions. She was, so to speak, a living emblem of those harmonious
dreams that her father in his youth had hoped to see realized.

The pale and delicate countenance of Nanna, who he thought was destined
in all probability to droop and die like a water lily, which she so much
resembled, carried the old man's mind back to the time when his father
had promised to wed his mother, and he sighed as he thought how
different Nanna's station in life would have been had that promise been
fulfilled. Instead of neglect and insult, homage from all would have
been her portion.

Yet Nanna was the pride and joy of her father's heart, for Ragnar, who
at an early age was obliged to labor for his own support, had preferred
to become a sailor, rather than to acquire a refined education, and Carl
could scarcely comprehend more than that which was necessary for the
performance of family worship. Nanna, on the contrary, would listen to
her father with the utmost pleasure and interest as he related and
explained matters and things which were entirely novel to one placed in
her position of life.

And then, with what eagerness would Nanna read those few books with
which her father's little library was supplied! She fully comprehended
all she read, and she could not resist from becoming gently interested
in the characters described in her books. She sympathised with the
unhappy and oppressed, and although she rejoiced with those happy heroes
and heroines who had passed safely through the ordeals of their loves,
yet when she read of the fortunate c