Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/264

 go both the lamb and the bottle and ran to meet him. At sight of this a little cold shiver ran through him,… she did not run nicely. But when she came nearer, and he held her in his arms, he was almost angry with himself for noticing it, and pressed a kiss on her fresh, warm cheek. She had become fairly familiar with him by degrees, but still always blushed when he kissed her; and to hide her confusion began eagerly telling him all that had happened at home since the evening before—a sow had littered, a cow broken loose in the night, and the butter which wouldn't "come." Emanuel's new zest in his out-door life had awakened her own interest in all these everyday things; had, as it were, ennobled them and her home. He laid his hand on her arm, and so they wandered confidentially down towards the farm.

Else was at the window of her bedroom arranging her thick iron grey hair. Far from minding Emanuel's approach, she nodded to him, only drawing a towel she had round her shoulders closer together at the neck.

"Good morning, mother!" he said gaily.

He had quickly accustomed himself to their natural simplicity of life; and in fact saw in it the simple leaning of the peasant's mind to the purity of childhood.

"How is all with you to-day?"

"Oh, very well—the big sow has littered."

"Yes, so I hear. How many pigs are there?"