ng in the room had a prosperous look, and Joanna's father
received him very kindly. To the new wife he was a stranger, but she
shook hands with him, and gave him some coffee.

"Joanna will be glad to see you," said the father: "you have grown
quite a nice young man. You shall see her presently. She is a girl who
rejoices my heart, and, please God, she will rejoice it yet more. She
has her own room now, and pays us rent for it." And the father knocked
quite politely at the door, as if he were a visitor, and then they
went in.

But how pretty everything was in that room! such an apartment was
certainly not to be found in all Kjoege: the queen herself could not be
more charmingly lodged. There were carpets, there were window curtains
quite down to the floor, and around were flowers and pictures, and a
mirror into which there was almost danger that a visitor might step,
for it was as large as a door; and there was even a velvet chair.

Knud saw all this at a glance: and yet he saw nothing but Joanna. She
was a grown maiden, quite different from what Knud had fancied her,
and much more beautiful. In all Kjoege there was not a girl like her.
How graceful she was, and with what an odd unfamiliar glance she
looked at Knud! But that was only for a moment, and then she rushed
towards him as if she would have kissed him. She did not really do so,
but she came very near it. Yes, she was certainly rejoiced at the
arrival of the friend of her youth! The tears were actually in her
eyes; and she had much to say, and many questions to put concerning
all, from Knud's parents down to the elder tree and the willow, which
she called Elder-mother and Willow-father, as if they had been human
beings; and indeed they might pass as such, just as well as the
gingerbread cakes; and of these she spoke too, and of their silent
love, and how they had lain upon the shop-board and split in two--and
then she laughed very heartily; but the blood mounted into Knud's
cheeks, and his heart beat thick and fast. No, she had not grown proud
at all. And it was through her--he noticed it well--that her parents
invited him to stay the whole evening with them; and she poured out
the tea and gave him a cup with her own hands; and afterwards she took
a book and read aloud to them, and it seemed to Knud that what she
read was all about himself and his love, for it matched so well with
his thoughts; and then she sang a simple song, but through her singing
it became