ge rolled into the inner court. The
dogs barked, the turkey-cocks gobbled, but not Wilhelm showed himself.
The Kammerjunker came--the excellent neighbor! and immediately afterward
Sophie; both exclaimed with smiles, "Welcome!"

"See, here we have our man!" said the Kammerjunker; "we can make use of
him in the play!"

"It is glorious you are come!" cried Sophie. "We shall immediately put
you under arrest." She extended her hand to him--he pressed it to his
lips. "We will have tableaux vivants this evening!" said she: "the
pastor has never seen any. We have no service from Wilhelm; he is in
Svendborg, and will not return for two days. You must be the officer;
the Kammerjunker will represent the Somnambulist, who comes with her
light through the window. Will you?"

"Everything you desire!" said Otto.

"Do not speak of it!" returned Sophie, and laid her finger on her lips.
The mother descended the steps.

"Dear Thostrup!" said she, and pressed, with warm cordiality, both his
hands. "I have really quite yearned after you. Now Wilhelm is away, you
must for two whole days put up with us alone."

Otto went through the long passage where hung the old portraits; it was
as if these also wished welcome. It only seemed a night full of many
dreams which had passed since he was here; a year in the lapse of time
is also not so long as a winter's night in the life of man.

Here it was so agreeable, so home-like; no one could have seen by the
trees that since then they had stood stripped of leaves and covered with
snow; luxuriantly green they waved themselves in the sun's warmth, just
as when Otto last gazed out of this window.

He had the red room as before. The dinner-bell rang.

Louise met him in the passage.

"Thostrup!" exclaimed she, with delight, and seized his hand. "Now, it
is almost a year and a day since I saw you!"

"Yes much has happened in this year!" said the Kammerjunker. "Come
soon to me, and you shall see what I have had made for pastime--a
bowling-green! Miss Sophie has tried her skill upon it."

The Kammerjunker took the mother to dinner. Otto approached Sophie.

"Will you not take the Kammerjunker's sister?" whispered she.

Mechanically, Otto made his bow before Miss Jakoba.

"Take one of the young ladies!" said she; "you would rather do that?"

Otto bowed, cast a glance toward Sophie; she had the old pastor. Otto
smiled, and conducted Jakoba to table.

The Mamsell, renowned through her work-box,