Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/131

 him as if he could fix him in his chair by the power of his eye. "Well, who else should I mean than she, who of all people was nearest to you, Pastor Hansted, and who long since was freed from her sorrows and sufferings—your mother."

Emanuel started, had he heard aright?

"My mother?" he exclaimed in a low tone, and his eyes involuntarily sought the little collection of portraits on the wall between the windows.

"Well, it certainly was before she became your mother that she was to us Friends of the people what we never can forget, though we did have proofs that she didn't entirely throw us off when she became your father's wife. Now, I suppose you will understand, sir, what joy and pride arose among us when we heard that Mrs Hansted's son was coming to be our curate. We thought that must indeed be a minister after our own hearts. And we do need a man of that kind here; yes, we need him sorely, Pastor Hansted?"

Emanuel could not get over his astonishment at hearing his mother mentioned for the second time in the course of the day, and this time, too, as a never-to-be-forgotten protectress—the mother whose memory was already wiped out in his own home, and whose name was whispered there with bated breath, so as not to wake up recollections of the shame, which her unhappy end had thrown over the respected Hansted family.

"But see here now, you'll give me leave to tell