e my sister less than even Mr. Thostrup resembles her. You two
are so very different!"

"In our views, in our impulses, we very much resemble each other!" said
Sophie.

"He is certainly not happy," exclaimed Louise. "We can read it in his
eyes."

"Yes, but it is precisely that which makes him interesting!" said
Sophie; "he is thus a handsome shadow-piece in everyday life."

"Thou speakest about it so calmly," said Louise, and bent over her
sister, "I would almost believe that it was love."

"Love!" exclaimed Sophie, raising herself up in bed, for now Louise's
words had become interesting to her; "whom dost thou think that he
loves?"

"Thyself," replied Louise, and seized her sister's hand.

"Perhaps?" returned Sophie. "I also made fun of him! It certainly went
on better when our cousin was here. Poor Thostrup!"

"And thou, Sophie," inquired Louise, "dost thou return his love?"

"It is a regular confession that thou desirest," replied she. "He is
in love--that all young men are. Our cousin, I can tell thee, said many
pretty things to me. Even the Kammerjunker flatters as well as he can,
the good soul! I have now resolved with myself to be a reasonable girl.
Believe me, however, Thostrup is in an ill humor!"

"If the Kammerjunker were to pay his addresses to you, would you accept
him?" asked Louise, and seated herself upon her sister's bed.

"What can make you think of such a thing?" inquired she. "Hast thou
heard anything?--Thou makest me anxious! O Louise! I joke, I talk a
deal; but for all that, believe me, I am not happy!"

They talked about the Kammerjunker, about Otto, and about the French
cousin. It was late in the night. Large tears stood in Sophie's eyes,
but she laughed for all that, and ended with a quotation from Jean Paul.

Half an hour afterward she slept and dreamed; her round white arm lay
upon the coverlet, and her lips moved with these words:

"With a smile as if an angel
Had just then kissed her mouth." [Note: Christian Winther.]

Louise pressed her countenance on the soft pillow, and wept.

CHAPTER XXXIX

"A swarm of colors, noise and screaming,
Music and sights, past any dreaming,
The rattle of wheels going late and early,--
All draw the looker-on into the hurly-burly."
TH. OVERSKOU.

A few days passed on. Otto heard nothing of German Heinrich or of his
sister. Peter Cripple seemed