The pain was soon over; and the two ladies, who now had reached the termination of the walk, turned toward the house side by side, each protecting herself, unconscious that any change had occurred.

“But I hardly believe it,” continued Miss Brandt:  “he said it perhaps only to make himself conspicuous, for certain gentlemen are just as coquettish as ... as they accuse us of being.”

Miss Hjelm uttered a doubting, “Um!”

“Yes, that they really are!  Have you ever seen any lady as coquettish as an actor?”

“I don’t know any of them, but I should suppose an actress might be.”

“No:  no actress I have ever met of the better sort was really coquettish.  I don’t know how it is with them, but I believe they have overcome coquettishness.”

“But you think, then, Counsellor Bang is coquettish?”

“Not Bang—­Bagger.  Yes; for although he said he had this romantic love for a fairy, he often does court to modest earthly ladies.  He is properly somewhat of a flirt.”

“That is unbecoming an old man.”

“Yes; but he is not old.”

“Oh!” said Miss Hjelm, laughing:  “I have only known one war counsellor, and he was old; so I thought of all war counsellors as old.”

“Yes; but Counsellor Bagger is not war counsellor, but a real Superior Court Counsellor.”

“Oh, how earnest that is!  And so he is in love with a fairy?”

“Yes:  it is ridiculous!” said Miss Brandt, laughing.  During this conversation they had reached the house, and Miss Brandt complained that something was yet pricking her ankle.  They went into Miss Hjelm’s room, and here a thorn was discovered and taken out.

“How pretty and cosy this room really is!” said Miss Brandt, looking around.  “In a situation like this one can surely live in the country summer and winter.  Out with us at Taarback it blows in through the windows, doors, and very walls.”

“That must be bad in a whirlwind.”

“Yes—­yes:  still, it might be quite amusing when the whirlwind carried such billets:  not that one would care for them; yet they might be interesting for a while.”

“Oh, yes! perhaps.”

“Yes:  how do you think a young girl would like it, when there came from Heaven a billet, in which one pledged himself to her for time and eternity?”

“That isn’t easy to say; but I don’t believe the occurrence quite so uncommon.  A friend of mine once had such a billet blown to her, and she presented me with it.”

“Does one give such things away?  Have you the billet?”

“I will look for it,” answered Miss Hjelm; and surely enough, after longer search in the sewing-table, in drawers, and small boxes, than was really necessary, she found it.  Miss Brandt read it, taking care not to remark that it very much appeared to her as if it resembled the one the counsellor had mentioned.

“And such a billet one gives away!” she said after a pause.