uired one of the travellers, and pointed toward
the hill, where at this distance the cross looked like a stake.

"That is the cross of the holy Anders!" replied Otto; and livingly stood
before him the recollections of the evening before.

"Does that really exist?" said the stranger. "I have read of it in the
'Letters of a Wandering Ghost.'"

This was a beautiful morning, the sun shone warmly, the sea was smooth
as a mirror, and so much the faster did the steamboat glide away. The
vessel with the mail, which had set sail two hours earlier, still lay
not far from land. The sails hung down loosely; not a breeze stirred
them.

The steamboat glided close past her; the passengers in the mail-vessel,
the greater portion coachmen, travelling journeymen, and peasants, stood
on the deck to see it. They waved greetings. One of the foremost leaned
on his knotty stick, pulled off his hat, and shouted, "Good morning,
my noble gentlefolk!" It was the German Heinrich; he then was going to
Funen. Otto's heart beat faster, he gazed down among the rushing waves
which foamed round the paddle, where the sunbeams painted a glorious
rainbow.

"That is lovely!" said one of the strangers, close to him.

"Very lovely!" returned Otto, and stilled the sigh which would burst
forth from his breast.

Scarcely two hours were fled--the cables were flung upon the Nyborg
bridge of boats, and the steamboat made fast to the island of Funen.

CHAPTER XXXII

"It is so sweet when friendly hands bid you a hearty
welcome, so dear to behold well-known features, wherever you
turn your eyes. Everything seems so home-like and quiet
about you and in your own breast." HENRIETTE HAUCK.

Otto immediately hired a carriage, and reached the hall just about
dinner-time. In the interior court-yard stood two calashes and an
Holstein carriage; two strange coachmen, with lace round their hats,
stood in animated discourse when Otto drove in through the gate. The
postilion blew his horn.

"Be quiet there!" cried Otto.

"There are strangers at the hall!" said the postilion; "I will only let
them know that another is coming."

Otto gazed at the garden, glanced up toward the windows, where mine of
the ladies showed themselves only out of a side building a female
head was stretched out, whose hair was put back underneath a cap. Otto
recognized the grown-together eyebrows. "Is she the first person I am to
see here?" sighed he; and the carria