talk about you. I got so
miserable about it that I felt as if some one had put a knife into my
heart; and from that moment--I am so ashamed of it now--I had no more
peace. I carried an aching pain in my heart night and day, and I thought
my heart itself would break merely to see him speak to you or you to
him. I am ashamed of myself; because what was more natural than that he
should never be tired of talking to you? I never should, myself!

Leonarda. But still I don't see--I don't understand yet--

Aagot. Wait a bit! Oh, don't look so anxiously at me! It is all over
now, you know.

Leonarda. What is all over?

Aagot. Bless my soul, wait! Aunt, dear, you are more impatient than I am
myself! I do not want you to think me worse than I am, so I must first
tell you how I fought with myself. I lay and cried all night, because
I could not talk to you about it, and in the daytime I forced myself
to seem merry and lively and happy. And then, aunt, one day I said to
myself quite honestly: Why should you feel aggrieved at his loving her
more than you? What are you, compared with her? And how splendid it
would be, I thought, for my dear aunt to find some one she could truly
love, and that it should be I that had brought them together!

Leonarda. That was splendid of you, Aagot!

Aagot. Yes, but now I mustn't make myself out better than I am, either.
Because I did not always manage to look at it that way; very often
something very like a sob kept rising in my throat. But then I used
to talk to myself seriously, and say: Even supposing it is your own
happiness you are giving up for her sake, is that too much for you to
do for her? No, a thousand times no! And even supposing he does not love
you any more, ought you not to be able to conquer your own feelings?
Surely it would be cowardly not to be able to do that! Think no more of
him, if he does not love you!

Leonarda. Aagot, I cannot tell you how I admire you, and love you, and
how proud I am of you!

Aagot. Oh, aunt, I never realised as I did then what you have been to
me! I knew that if I were capable of any great deed, anything really
good or really fine, it was you that had planted the impulse in me. And
then I sought every opportunity to bring this about; I wanted to take
ever so humble a part in it, but without your hearing a word or a sigh
from me. Besides, I had you always before me as an example; because I
knew that you would have done it for me--indeed that you ha