The next morning Marianne first had to brush and press the velvet suit, for she would not bring the boy back to the parsonage in disorder; she would not have done that for the sake of his blessed mother.  Then she too must dress in her Sunday best, and so the morning had almost passed before they both had started on their way, quite contented and without any suspicion of the enormous fear and excitement which had been in the parsonage and had spread over the whole of Upper Wood.  At the church they had been greeted by the assembled crowd with great noise and much confused talking, and then they were accompanied to the parsonage by the schoolmates, who were crazed with joy at seeing Erick.

In the general excitement and joy, the colonel had been quite forgotten.  He had sat down unnoticed on a chair, and had listened attentively to the reports, following with his eyes the lively gestures which the excited Erick was making in the zeal of telling his story.  Now the reports were finished and for the first time Erick’s eyes beheld the stranger in the crowd.  The latter beckoned him to come to him; Erick obeyed at once.

“Come here, my boy, hither,” and the colonel placed him right before him.  “So, just look straight in my eyes.  What is your name?”

Erick with his bright eyes looked directly into those of the strange gentleman, and without hesitation he said:  “Erick Dorn.”

The gentleman looked at him still more directly.  “After whom were you called, boy, do you know?”

Erick hesitated a moment with the answer, but he did not divert his glance.  It seemed as if the eyes of the stranger attracted and conquered him.  “After my grandfather,” he now said with a clear voice.

“My boy—­your mother used to look at me just so,—­I am your grandfather—­” and now big tears ran down the austere gentleman’s cheeks.  Erick must have been seized by the attraction of kinship, for without the least shyness, he threw both arms around the old gentleman’s neck and rejoicingly exclaimed:  “Oh, Grandfather, is it really you?  I know you well!  And I have so much to tell you from Mother, so much.”

[Illustration:  He threw both arms around the old gentleman’s neck and rejoicingly exclaimed:  “Oh, Grandfather, is it really you?"...]

“Have you?  Have you, my boy?” But the grandfather could say no more.

When Erick noticed that his grandfather kept on wiping away the tears, then sad thoughts gained the upper hand in him and all at once the rejoicing expression disappeared, and he said quite sadly:  “Oh, Grandfather, I was not to come to you now, and not for a long time.  Only when I had become an honorable man, was I to step before you and say to you:  ’My mother sends me to you, that you may be proud of me, and that I may make good the sorrow, which my mother has caused you.’”

The grandfather put his arms lovingly around Erick and said:  “Now everything is all right.  It is enough that your mother has sent you to me.  She meant it well with the ‘honorable man’, in this I recognize my child; and you do not disobey her, my boy, for you see, you did not come to me, but I came to you.  And an honorable man you will also become with me.”