years ago! I was thinking of that in the night.

Mrs. Tjaelde. Sit down here with me.

Tjaelde. Shall we not continue our stroll?

Mrs. Tjaelde. The sun is too hot.

Tjaelde. Not for me.

Mrs. Tjaelde. You big strong man! It is too hot for me.

Tjaelde (taking a chair). There you are, then.

Mrs. Tjaelde (taking off his hat and wiping his forehead). You are very
hot, dear. You have never looked so handsome as you do now!

Tjaelde. That's just as well, as you have so much time to admire me now!

Mrs. Tjaelde. Now that I find getting about so difficult, you mean? Ah,
that is only my pretence, so as to get you to wheel me about!

Tjaelde (with a sigh). Ah, my dear, it is good of you to take it so
cheerfully. But that you should be the only one of us to bear such hard
traces of our misfortune--

Mrs. Tjaelde (interrupting him). Do you forget your own whitened hair?
That is a sign of it, too, but a beautiful one! And, as for my being an
invalid, I thank God every day for it! In the first place I have almost
no pain, and then it gives me the opportunity to feel how good you are
to me in every way.

Tjaelde. You enjoy your life, then?

Mrs. Tjaelde. Yes, indeed I do--and just as I should wish to.

Tjaelde. Just to be spoiled, and yourself to spoil us?

Valborg (from the window). I have finished the accounts, father.

Tjaelde. Doesn't it come out at about what I said?

Valborg. Almost exactly. Shall I enter it in the ledger at once?

Tjaelde. Oho! You are glad then, as you seem in such it hurry?

Valborg. Certainly! Such a good stroke of business!

Tjaelde. And both you and Sannaes tried your best to dissuade me from
it!

Valborg. Such a pair of wiseacres!

Mrs. Tjaelde. Ah, your father is your master, my dear!

Tjaelde. Tjaelde. Oh, it is easy enough to captain a small army that
marches on, instead of a big one that is in retreat. (VALBORG goes on
with her work.)

Mrs. Tjaelde. And yet it seemed hard enough for us to give it up.

Tjaelde. Yes, yes--oh, yes. I can tell you, I was thinking of that last
night. If God had given me what I begged for then, what state should we
have been in now? I was thinking of that, too.

Mrs. Tjaelde. It is the fact of the estate being at last wound up that
has brought all these thoughts into your mind, dear?

Tjaelde. Yes.

Mrs. Tjaelde. Then I must confess that I, too, have scarcely been able
to think of anything else since yesterday, when Sannaes went into tow