yself about it! but now I wish--the unhappy man, how
miserably he lies there! and that poor, poor child! Stroem," said he,
calling to his servant, "is the Candidate at home? No? and it is nearly
eleven! The thousand! To-morrow he shall find out where he is at home!"

CHAPTER VI.

HERO-DEEDS.

On the following morning, as Judge Frank drew aside his window-curtains,
the sun--the sun, so powerful in its beams and its silence--shone into
his chamber, lighting it with its glorious splendour. Those sunbeams
went directly to his heart.

"Dear Elise," said he, when his wife was awake, "I have a great deal to
do to-day. Perhaps it would be better if you would speak with Jacobi,
and give him his lecture. Ladies, in such circumstances, have more
influence on men than we men can have. Besides this, what can be bent
must not be broken. I--in short, I fancy you will manage the affair
best. It is so beautiful to-day! Could you not take the children a long
walk? It would do both them and you good, and upon the way you would
have an excellent opportunity for an explanation. Should this be of no
avail, then I will--but I would gladly avoid being angry with him; one
has things enough to vex one without that."

The Judge was not the only person in the house whom the sun inspired
with thoughts of rambling. The Candidate had promised the children on
some "very fine day" to take them to a wood, where there were plenty of
hazel-bushes, and where they would gather a rich harvest of nuts.
Children have an incomparable memory for all such promises; and the
little Franks thought that no day could by any possibility be more
beautiful or more suitable for a great expedition than the present, and
therefore, as soon as they discovered that the Candidate and their
parents thought the same, their joy rose actually as high as the roof.
Brigitta had not hands enough for Petrea and Eva, so did they skip about
when she wished to dress them.

Immediately after noon the procession set forth; Henrik and the
Queen-bee marched first, next came Eva and Leonore, between whom was
Petrea, each one carrying a little basket containing a piece of cake, as
provision for their journey. Behind the column of children came the
mother, and near her the Candidate, drawing a little wicker-carriage, in
which sate little Gabriele, looking gravely about with her large brown
eyes.

"Little Africa"--so the children called their little dark-eyed neighbour
from the C