Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/186

 on the other hand, sat in elevated retirement on a tuft of grass, talking to a couple of old women.

After supper the girls and the young men took to playing games and dancing to their own singing.

Emanuel, who had again remained alone, sat with his cheek resting on his hand, looking down on this scene with a half absent smile. The merry voices of the young people carried his thoughts over the water—and further away.

He thought of the home of his childhood, and his own joyless youth, and of all his dreams. He felt now—that he was in the midst of the realization of those dreams. This was the joyous mirth of childhood at which he had dimly guessed. Here was the Promised Land, for whose milk and honey he had yearned.

His eye sought Hansine. He only found her after considerable search among a little group of older girls, who were not taking part in the dancing, but stood by the boat looking on. She was sitting behind the others on the gunnel, with her head half turned away, gazing fixedly at a distant point of the water, as if the notes of the singing had led her thoughts, too, on distant travels. The twilight was considerably advanced, and her features were not plainly visible at the distance where Emanuel was. But the outline of her figure was all the more plainly marked against the purple water. His eye followed the