“Yes:  will you have it?” asked Miss Hjelm, as though after a sudden resolution.

Miss Brandt’s first impulse was an eager acceptance; but she checked herself almost as quickly, and answered: 

“Oh, yes, thank you, as a curiosity.”  Then slowly put it between her glove and hand.

As Miss Brandt and her company rode away, said Miss Hjelm’s cousin, a handsome, middle-aged widow, to her: 

“How is it, Ingeborg?  It appears to me you laugh with one eye and weep with the other.”

“Yes:  a soap-bubble has burst for me, and glitters, maybe, for another.”

“You know I seldom understand the sentimental enigmas:  can you not interpret your words?”

“Yes:  to-day an illusion has vanished, that had lasted for six years.”

“For six years?” said her cousin, with an inquiring or sympathizing look.  “So it began when you were hardly sixteen years.”

“Now do you believe, that when I was in my sixteenth year I saw an ideal of a man, and was enamoured of him, and to-day I hear that he is married.”

“No, I don’t know as I believe just that,” answered the cousin, dropping her eyes; “but I suppose that then you had a pretty vision, and have carried it along with you in silence—­and with faith.”

“But it was something more than a vision; it was a letter—­a love-letter.”

The cousin looked upon Ingeborg so inquiringly, so anxiously, that words were unnecessary.  Beside this the cousin knew, that when Ingeborg was inclined to talk, she did so without being asked, and if she wished to be silent, she was silent.

Ingeborg continued:  “One time, I drove to town with sainted father.  Father was to go no further than to Noerrebro, and I had an errand at Vestervold.  So I stepped out and went through the Love-path.  As I came to the corner of the path, and the Ladegaardsway, the wind blew so violently against me, that I could hardly breathe; and something blew against my veil, fluttering with wings like a humming-bird.  I tried to drive it away, for it blinded one of my eyes; but it blew back again.  So I caught it and was going to let it fly away over my head, but that moment I saw it was written upon, and read it.  It was a love-letter!  A man wrote that he sent this as in old times the Norwegian emigrants let their high-seat pillars be carried by the sea, and where it came he would one time come, and bring his faith to his destined—­ Geb.’”

“‘Geb’?  What is that?” asked the cousin.  “That is Ingeborg,” answered Miss Hjelm, with a plain simplicity, showing how deeply she had believed in the earnestness of the message.

“It was really remarkable!” said the cousin, and added with a smile which perhaps was somewhat ironical:  “And did you then resolve to remain unmarried, until the unknown letter-writer should come and redeem his vow?”

“I will not say that,” answered Ingeborg, who quickly became more guarded; “but the letter perhaps contained some stronger requirements than under the circumstances could be fulfilled.”