Page:Pontoppidan - Emanuel, or Children of the Soil (1896).djvu/82

 "Oh," answered his daughter, quietly—she had remained at the table leaning against the back of the chair, looking out of the window with thoughtful and half-closed eyes—"I suppose it would not be so extraordinary if he felt somewhat oppressed by his office at first. He is so young—and besides, he has perhaps perceived that his sermons have not won the unmixed approval of the people."

"Oh, so far as that goes, he need not reproach himself," answered the Provst, with a feeling of complacency. "And I don't believe it's anything of that sort that's troubling him. In that case he would certainly have come to me with his troubles. No, I'm afraid he doesn't understand himself. There's something wavering about him. Perhaps he's got some crotchet or other about himself in his head. That sort of thing runs in the family, I hear. His mother—according to what Pastor Petersen tells me—was a highly eccentric person, who eventually took her own life in a fit of temporary insanity."

Miss Ragnhild turned to her father with a startled glance.

"What do you say!—his mother!"

The Provst stopped and cleared his throat. In his eagerness, and by a slip of the tongue, he had mentioned a subject on which he had resolved to keep silence for the sake of the curate and the congregation.

"Well,—I don't know exactly, of course!" he