church glittering in the sun.

Ah, how often his thoughts were with Joanna! Did she think of him?
Yes. Towards Christmas there came a letter from her father to the
parents of Knud, to say that they were getting on very well in
Copenhagen, and especially might Joanna look forward to a brilliant
future on the strength of her fine voice. She had been engaged in the
theatre in which people sing, and was already earning some money, out
of which she sent her dear neighbours of Kjoege a dollar for the merry
Christmas Eve. They were to drink her health, she had herself added in
a postscript, and in the same postscript there stood further, "A kind
greeting to Knud."

The whole family wept: and yet all this was very pleasant; those were
joyful tears that they shed. Knud's thoughts had been occupied every
day with Joanna; and now he knew that she also thought of him: and the
nearer the time came when his apprenticeship would be over, the more
clearly did it appear to him that he was very fond of Joanna, and that
she must be his wife; and when he thought of this, a smile came upon
his lips, and he drew the thread twice as fast as before, and pressed
his foot hard against the knee-strap. He ran the awl far into his
finger, but he did not care for that. He determined not to play the
dumb lover, as the two gingerbread cakes had done: the story should
teach him a lesson.

And now he was a journeyman, and his knapsack was packed ready for his
journey: at length, for the first time in his life, he was to go to
Copenhagen, where a master was already waiting for him. How glad
Joanna would be! She was now seventeen years old, and he nineteen.

Already in Kjoege he had wanted to buy a gold ring for her; but he
recollected that such things were to be had far better in Copenhagen.
And now he took leave of his parents, and on a rainy day, late in the
autumn, went forth on foot out of the town of his birth. The leaves
were falling down from the trees, and he arrived at his new master's
in the metropolis wet to the skin. Next Sunday he was to pay a visit
to Joanna's father. The new journeyman's clothes were brought forth,
and the new hat from Kjoege was put on, which became Knud very well,
for till this time he had only worn a cap. And he found the house he
sought, and mounted flight after flight of stairs until he became
almost giddy. It was terrible to him to see how people lived piled up
one over the other in the dreadful city.

Everythi