g of her convalescence, as she sate up and saw
herself surrounded by all the comforts which love and home could gather
about a beloved sufferer, she said to Leonore as she leaned upon her,
"Ah, who would not be willing to live when they see themselves so
beloved!"

In the meantime Louise's wedding-day was approaching nearer.

CHAPTER XIII.

A SURPRISE.

Three days before the wedding a grand travelling-carriage drawn by four
horses rolled through the streets of the town of X----, and from the
prodigious clatter which it made drew all the inquisitive among the
inhabitants to their windows.

"Did you see, dear sister," cried the general shopkeeper Madame Suur to
Madame Bask, the wife of the postmaster, "the grand travelling-carriage
that has just gone by? Did you see the sweet youth that sate on the left
and looked so genteel, with his snow-white neck and open shirt-collar?
Lawk! how he looked at me--so sweet as he was! How like a real prince he
looked!"

"Dear sister!" answered the postmistress, "then you did not see the
gentleman who sate on the right? He was a grand gentleman, that I can
positively assert! He sate so stately leaning back in the carriage, and
so wrapped up in grand furs that one could not see the least bit of his
face. Positively he is a great somebody!"

"I got a shimmer of the youth," said the grey-brown handed and
complexioned Annette P----, as she glanced up from her coarse sewing,
with such a look as probably a captive casts who has glanced out of his
prison into a freer and more beautiful state of existence; "he looked so
calm, with large blue eyes, out of the plate-glass windows of the
carriage! as pure and grave he looked as one of God's angels!"

"Ay, we know to be sure how the angels look!" said the postmistress,
snubbingly, and with a severe glance at Annette; "but that's absolutely
all one! Yet I should like to know what grandees they are. I should not
be a bit surprised if it were his royal highness or gracious
crown-prince, who with his eldest son is travelling _incondito_ through
the country."

"Dear sister says what is true," returned Madame Suur. "Yes, it must be
so! for he looked like a regular prince, the sweet youth, as he sate
there and glanced at me through the window; really, he smiled at me!"

"Nay, my ladies, we've got some genteel strangers in the city!"
exclaimed Mr. Alderman Nyberg as he came into the room.

"Have they stopped here?" cried both ladies at