Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 096.djvu/295

Rh Though I was very eager to hear all the particulars of what had caused poor Cecilia's sad situation, yet a presentiment that some great calamity had happened, and a feeling of respect for the old woman's grief, restrained me from at once asking what I wished, yet dreaded to hear.

"Is your husband not at home?" was my first inquiry.

“My husband!" she exclaimed! "Our Lord has taken him long since—alas! It is now three years, come Michaelmas next, that I have been a widow. But, pray eat something—it is homely fare—but don't spare it."

"Many thanks," said I. "But tell me about yourselves. So your poor husband is gone—that must have been a sad loss—a sad grief to you."

"Ah, yes!" she replied, with tears in her eyes; "but that was not the only one. Did you see my daughter?"

"Yes," I answered; "she seemed to me a little strange."

"She is quite deranged," she exclaimed, bursting into tears, "She has to be watched constantly, and I am obliged to keep a woman to look after her. To be sure she spins a little—but she has scarcely time to do anything, for she has to be after poor Cecil at every hour of the day, when her thoughts fall upon Esben."

"Where is Esben?" I asked.

"In God's kingdom," she answered, solemnly. "So you did not ask her about him? Oh, Lord, have mercy on us! He came to a dreadful end, nobody ever heard of such a frightful thing. But pray make yourself at home—you can eat and drink while you are listening. Aye. aye, sad things have happened since you were here. And times are also very hard—business is extremely dull, and we have to employ strangers now to carry it on."

When I saw that her regret for past comforts mingled with her sorrow for present evils, and that neither were too great to prevent her relating her misfortunes, I took courage and asked her about them, She gave me a history, which, with the permission of my readers, I will repeat in the narrator's own simple and homely style. After having drawn a chair to the table, and taken up her knitting, she began:

"Kjeld Esbensen and ourselves have been neighbours since my first arrival here. Kjeld's Esben and our Cecil became good friends before any one knew anything about it. My husband was not pleased, nor I neither, for Esben had nothing, and his father but little. We always thought that the girl would have had more pride or more prudence than to dream of throwing herself away on such a raw lad. It is true he travelled about with a little pack, and made a few shillings; but how far would these go? He came as a suitor to Cecilia, but her father said no, which was not surprising, and thereupon Esben set off to Holstein. We observed that Cecil lost her spirits, but we did not think much of that—'She is sure to forget him,' said my good man, 'when the right one comes.'

'It was not long before Mads Egelund—I don't know if you ever saw him—he lives a few miles from this—he came and offered himself with an unencumbered property, and three thousand dollars a-year. That was something worth having. Michel immediately said yes; but Cecil, God help her! said no. So her father was very angry, and