Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/314

 the meadow behind the farmyard, where they could dine; and then he proposed to get leave to use the Meeting House for dancing, and decorate it. They need not be alarmed about the expenses; if they would do him the honour to put the whole affair in his hands, and trust him to make the necessary purchases, he would promise that it should not cost them more than a couple of hundred kr. He knew that for the last few years the people of Skibberup had withdrawn their custom from him; but he wished to take this opportunity of shewing them that they had mistaken him, and that both he and his wife were their true and disinterested friends. These observations were seconded by Mrs Villing, who laid her hand on Else's arm and looked at her in the most affectionate manner.

The shopkeeper's persuasions at last overcame Anders Jörgen's scruples, and when Else had had another conversation with Hansine, she also fell in with her mother's plans.

Villing was really in the right. There was a growing desire throughout the neighbourhood to do honour to Emanuel, who by his gentle manners, his straightforwardness, and his constant anxiety to meet their wishes, had, by degrees, won over even the Veilby people, so that they crowded to church every Sunday too. Even a man like Jensen, the chairman of the Parish Council, made advances to him, and Aggerbölle the vet. had long since declared him to be a