n the first pew, right under the
pulpit, and we--my father and I--a few pews behind; and we children
exchanged many a Freemason's sign, intelligible only to ourselves.

But once Susanna wounded me deeply, even to bitter tears. It became
evident to me that she had made my father the subject of one of her
lively remarks. With his good strong voice, he used to sing the hymns in
the simple country fashion, very loud; but--what I and many others
considered very effective--at the end of each verse he added a peculiar
turn to the last note, which did not belong to the tune, and was of his
own composition. This had been made a subject of remark at the
parsonage, and, like a little pitcher, Susanna had ears. When she
noticed that I had found this out, she looked very unhappy.

When Carl was thirteen, he was sent to the grammar-school in Bergen, and
the "expensive" tutor went away by the last steamboat that same autumn.

From this time Susanna's education was carried on by her parents, and I
was obliged to acquire my learning from the clerk, a good-natured old
man, who himself knew very little more than how to play the violin,
which he did with passion, and a sympathetic if uncultivated taste.

When the clerk had gained my father's permission for me to learn the
violin--and I, like him, preferred this kind of entertainment to
learning lessons--three whole years, in other words, the time until I
was sixteen years of age, were divided between violin-playing and
idleness.

Perhaps if my mind, during this period of my life, had been properly
kept under the daily discipline of work, much in me might have been
developed differently. At it was, the whole of my imaginary life was
unfortunately put into my own power, and I laid the foundation of
fancies which afterwards gained the mastery over my life, to a ruinous
extent. Some strongly impressionable natures require that the dividing
line drawn in every one's consciousness between fancy and reality, shall
be constantly and thoroughly maintained, lest it be obliterated at
certain points, and the real and the imaginary become confused.

Although we no longer had the same abundant opportunities for meeting as
before, Susanna and I were, notwithstanding, constant and confidential
playmates throughout our childhood.

When she had anything to confide to me, she generally watched by the
gate that crossed the road by the parsonage lands, at the time when I
went to or came from the clerk's