ask you
something, but you mustn't laugh at me."

Camilla jumped down from the chair.

"Tell me--no, I want to tell you something myself--here is the table and
there is the hedge, if you won't be my bride, I'll leap with the basket
over the hedge and stay away. One!"

Camilla glanced furtively at him, and noticed that the smile had
vanished from his face.

"Two!"

He was quite pale with emotion.

"Yes," she whispered, and let go the ends of her apron so that the
apples rolled toward all corners of the world and then she ran. But she
did not run away from Mogens.

"Three," said she, when he reached her, but he kissed her nevertheless.

The councilor was interrupted among his asters, but the district-judge's
son was too irreproachable a blending of nature and civilization for the
councilor to raise objections.

*****

It was late winter; the large heavy cover of snow, the result of a whole
week's uninterrupted blowing, was in the process of rapidly melting
away. The air was full of sunlight and reflection from the white snow,
which in large, shining drops dripped down past the windows. Within the
room all forms and colors had awakened, all lines and contours had come
to life. Whatever was flat extended, whatever was bent curved, whatever
was inclined slid, and whatever was broken refracted the more. All kinds
of green tones mingled on the flower-table, from the softest dark-green
to the sharpest yellow-green. Reddish brown tones flooded in flames
across the surface of the mahogany table, and gold gleamed and sparkled
from the knick-knacks, from the frames and moldings, but on the carpet
all the colors broke and mingled in a joyous, shimmering confusion.

Camilla sat at the window and sewed, and she and the Graces on the
mantle were quite enveloped in a reddish light from the red curtains
Mogens walked slowly up and down the room, and passed every moment in
and out of slanting beams of light of pale rainbow-colored dust.

He was in talkative mood.

"Yes," he said, "they are a curious kind of people, these with whom
you associate. There isn't a thing between heaven and earth which they
cannot dispose of in the turn of a hand. This is common, and that
is noble; this is the most stupid thing that has been done since the
creation of the world, and that is the wisest; this is so ugly, so
ugly, and that is so beautiful it cannot be described. They agree so
absolutely about all this, that it seems as if they had