“Are you going to run away from us again?” said he, with a friendly smile, as he passed.

Madeleine felt she had a guilty conscience, and, after much stammering and hesitation, she at last managed to ask her uncle if he did not like her to go.

“Oh no!  I didn’t mean that,” said the Consul, as he patted her on the cheek.  “I wish you always to do exactly what you like best.”

As Madeleine sat in the carriage she could not help thinking that she was one of the dullest creatures on earth.  How could she be so foolish as to imagine that any one in the house cared whether she were there or not?  More probably she was only in the way.  She could not help regretting her defective education, and a few days after, when she returned to Sandsgaard, she noticed that her uncle did not pat her on the cheek.  The fact was, she did not yet quite understand her new life; everything had turned out so different to what she had expected.

When Madeleine and her friend Per had met for the last time, but few words had passed between them, but when he went down the hill towards Bratvold, she stood gazing after him till he was out of sight.  She had then made a vow to keep true to him, no matter what her relations might say, and she knew well enough they would all be against her; but as she looked over the sea, she felt herself so strong and so determined, that she could not doubt her courage and her constancy to her first love.

But now, as it so turned out, her constancy was never called in question.  She felt certain that a rumour of her connection with Per must have reached Sandsgaard, for she well knew that there were stories enough about her free and unrestrained life at Bratvold, and so at first she always dreaded the slightest allusion to it.  She had at the same time quite made up her mind to confess openly how matters stood, and to say plainly that although he was nothing but a simple peasant and fisherman, she, Madeleine Garman, would be true to him.  But in the course of conversation she could not discover even the most distant hint at her adventure; it did not even appear that anything really was known about it; her past life was, in fact, never mentioned in any way, and it seemed to be taken for granted that she could never have conducted herself otherwise than naturally became a Miss Garman.  It was this very assumption that seemed to shake her in her resolution.

Everything about Fanny’s pretty and artistic house was always kept in the best of order.  Old mahogany and horsehair were here quite inadmissible.

The furniture, which was mostly of carved walnut, and plush, had all come from Hamburg. Portieres hung before the doors, and the windows and the corners of the rooms were gay with jardinieres, and vases containing flowers and choice foliage plants; while small tables and luxurious armchairs were grouped about the room.  The rooms were not large, but when all the doors stood open the general effect was very pleasing, enhanced by its china, paintings, bright carpets, and gilded mirrors.