Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/227

 like the curate. For the rest, she added, it would not be such an unheard-of thing in the future, now that equality and fraternity were preached everywhere; so, for that matter, Hansine need not trouble herself. But it was not so easy to set Hansine's scruples to rest. Even when her friend, to cheer her, encircled her waist with her arms, and set herself to call up pictures of the brilliant future which awaited her, she continued abstracted and restless; the time was moreover approaching when the curate might be expected.

"I think I must go into the parlour now," she said at last, and got up.—"But you must go with me," she added, putting out her hand with such a dejected countenance that Ane burst into fits of laughter. "Upon my soul, I think that curate has half scared the heart out of you, my chick-a-biddy! I don't know you again. Are you the same girl who never winced when one used to stick darning needles into you?"

"It's easy enough for you to talk," said Hansine with a sigh.

For nearly an hour after that, the friends sat in the parlour, both on one chair, with their arms round each other's waists.

Ane continued to paint glowing pictures of the future. Hansine tried to smile now and then, when her friend's fancy took the wildest flights; but she mostly sat buried in thought, and started nervously at every sound in the yard.

"I suppose we shall have to call you 'Miss'