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I am fain to hear you say it. Let me see that you deck you in your best attire, that our guests may say: Happy she who mated with Bengt Gauteson.—But now must I to the larder; there are many things to-day that must not be overlooked.

'Twas well he departed. While here he remains Meseems the blood freezes within my veins; Meseems that a crushing might and cold My heart in its clutches doth still enfold.

is my husband! I am  wife! How long, how long lasts a woman's life? Sixty years, mayhap—God pity me Who am not yet full twenty-three!

Hard, so long in a gilded cage to pine; Hard a hopeless prisoner's lot—and mine.

With rings, and with jewels, and all of my best By his order myself I am decking— But oh, if to-day were my burial-feast, 'Twere little that I'd be recking.

But if thus I brood I must needs despair; I know a song that can lighten care.