pearl set in gold, and at the same time a real human being in heart and in deed, an angel in goodness, a noble, truthful woman; and the only thing that I now wonder at is, that I actually have found such a one, and that such a woman can actually take a fancy to and like me !” "Oh Dr. Hedermann !” "Call me David, and say thou to me, or I will run away!" "If thou didst but know," resumed Ingeborg, with quiet tears, "how much more wonderful it seems to me that thou canst like me, who was so deceitful, so full of faults, and besides no longer young." "Young enough for me," said the doctor. "Thou art ten years younger than I am, and a thousand times more lovely in my eyes now than before. And it is to me most difficult to comprehend how thou really canst like me!" "But do you then believe me still to be a thoughtless, giddy girl?" said Ingeborg, cheerfully; "let me then tell your how you-I beg pardon, thou didst convert me. When I had that sad affection of the eyes, which threatened to produce blindness, and thou wast my physician, I was so deeply affected by thy kindness, thy care for me; and when I owed the restoration of my sight to thee, I saw in thy eyes that which I never forgot. Thy conversation, thy example, thy whole life became beacons to me and helped me by degrees to free myself from the fetters wherewith custom, and my good mother's mistaken tenderness, had bound me to the mere emptiness of life. I never loved it; I hungered and thirsted after something better, but knew not what, until thou showedst me the way. Since then I have silently followed thee as far as I was able, but without any hope of being able to overtake thee, often made unhappy by thy bitterness and mistrust of me, but yet more happy in the new duties which thou hast pointed out to me in a life for others, than I had ever before been for a moment, whilst I lived merely for myself." "And thou art not afraid of a life of labor with me, Ingeborg? For will not conceal from thee, that I regard myself as one of our Lord's humble stewards on earth, and all that I have obtained from him of spiritual or physical good, I must employ in his service; I do not like spending money in dinners and expensive wines, and such unnecessaries, but desire to live a simple, frugal life, as one of our father's laborers on earth. Art thou not afraid of this, Ingeborg? Thou art not accustomed to it." "I shall soon become so, if thou consider me worthy to share it with thee." "And thou canst fully trust thyself to me?—I am snappish and odd sometimes-very queer-tempered,-say cutting things -wilt thou not be afraid of me ?" "If I am so, I shall tell thee." "But if I get angry, unreasonable ?” "Then I shall try to break thee of it." "Well said, Ingeborg! Thanks for the promise. Thy courteousness and gentleness will be my correctors. I will put myself under their teaching. "Now look," continued the doctor, suddenly assuming a humorous gaiety, "when a dromedary or camel will take his driver upon his back, he falls down on his knees before him, as I do, and the other places himself on his shoulder, thus, and takes the bridle in his hand, and then the obedient dromedary rises, and is guided by that hand, even though it be the weak hand of a woman, and he carries her to the Herberg, through the desert of the world, thus." And so saying, Dr. Hedermann lifted Ingeborg upon his shoulder, and marched with her along the room. No wonder that Mrs. Uggla, who at that moment entered and beheld this extraordinary "undertaking," believed that the doctor was gone mad, and was very near falling into a fit from sheer terror. But when she saw Ingeborg's calm and smiling countenance, she stood stock-still with the door in her hand, whilst the doctor exclaimed gaily to her: "We are only rehearsing a scheme which we have agreed upon carrying out through the whole of our lives. I am a sort of dromedary which has undertaken to carry Ingeborg through the desert journey, and Ingeborg will be my gracious leader and governor, yet with the proviso that Ingeborg's mother gives us her blessing on our way.” "Let me descend, my dromedary," said Ingeborg, "my mother does not understand the joke." "Then we will explain it to her in earnest!" said the doctor as he obeyed Ingeborg, and turning to her mother, explained what had taken place, besought Ingeborg's hand and her mother's blessing with such cordial feeling, that Mrs. Uggla, both affected and astonished, had neither words nor opportunity to express the many doubts which she felt with regard to the match, nor yet her amazement at the way in which it had been brought about. Mrs. Uggla really had never thought of Dr. Hedermann as her son-in-law, and she considered him, in fact, not altogether comme il faut, as her daughter's husband. But she had too much respect for him and his medical skill to let this be observed. "But he is not a nobleman!" said she, sighing, to Ingeborg, when they were alone. "But he is an honorable man and the best of men !” said Ingeborg, "and mamma's daughter will be happy with him." "And he is a wealthy man-lives in his own house-the towns-people will say that Ingeborg has made a good match," sighed Mrs. Uggla, in petto, with a sense of consolation. She was one of the old school, the good lady, and firmly adhered to the old style. A WEDDING AT KUNGSKÖPING. WHAT THE TOWNS-PEOPLE SAID. DR. HEDERMANN so hurried on the publication of the banns and the marriage, that in one month after the evening we have just described he led his own Ingeborg into his own house as his wife, and he made Ingeborg's mother such handsome presents on this occasion, that she almost forgot to sigh because he was not a nobleman. But then, on the other hand, he played her, on that very wedding-day, such a trick as she never forgot and hardly ever forgave him. For, instead of following the old Swedish custom, not the most agreeable, according to our fancy, but which, in Mrs. Uggla's family, had always been the ceremonial usage at weddings, just at the very time when the bride ought to have vanished in a mysterious manner from the little company, and when Mrs. Uggla was giving significant hints to Ingeborg on the subject, what should the doctor do, but take it into his head to play the part of dromedary, snatch up his bride, place her on his shoulder, and carry her off before the eyes of all! Ingeborg's cheerful and consoling words to her mother, "We shall soon come and see you again, mamma!" had very little consolation in them, as she beheld Ingeborg placed in a covered carriage, wrapped up in a cloak of the doctor's, who then stepped into the carriage, and away it drove rapidly with them-nobody knew where ! Mrs. Uggla would have distressed herself horribly at this sort of abduction, had not Mimmi Svanberg, who was present at the wedding, and had been admitted into the plot, comforted her somewhat by the assurance that this mode of procedure was modern and universally practised in England and America, and would soon be the fashion in this country also. Mimmi Svanberg laughed so heartily at the whole thing, and talked so about the story of Pluto and Proserpine, that Mrs. Uggla really began to think that the affair was not so terrible after all, and was ready to smile at Mimmi's joke, and promised not to trouble herself at all as to what the Kungsköping people might say about the matter. The Kungsköping people were not very well pleased with the wedding, which was carried on so quietly and silently that they had hardly time to know anything about it before it was all over, and the doctor had gone off with his wife. And when the new-married couple after a few weeks' absence returned to the town, and instead of paying visits or sending out great invitations, as the Kungsköping people had calculated upon, continued to live wholly in stillness and quietness, occupying themselves with the poor and the sick of the town, rather than with its well-to-do inhabitants, the people of Kungsköping began to grumble, and say all kinds of things about "meanness," and want of "knowledge of life," and that the "doctor was a tyrant to his wife, and that she would be very glad to see people if she dared ;" and in short, it is impossible to say what other extraordinary reports might not have been circulated by the townsfolks, with their corsair Mrs. Tupplander at their head, about the new-married couple, "who did not behave like other people ;" if they had not been driven out of their heads by another wedding, which was more in accordance with the honor of Kungsköping and the respectability of its inhabitants. This was the wedding of Adelgunda Jönson and Lieutenant Krongranat. Mrs. Jönson, who was now fully entitled to call her daughter "her ladyship," spared nothing to make the wedding worthy of her daughter's new rank and her own family's respectability. Long before, and long after the wedding, the people of Kungsköping talked with admiration of the wealth and the solid luxury which was expended on this occasion. Never |