den wedding is to be,' said she, but they did not
hear her; they were talking of olden times. 'Do you remember,' said the
old sailor, 'when we were quite little and used to run about and play in
the very same yard where we are now sitting, and how we planted little
twigs in one corner and made a garden?'

"'Yes,' said the old woman, 'I remember it quite well; and how we
watered the twigs, and one of them was a sprig of elder that took root
and put forth green shoots, until in time it became the great tree under
which we old people are now seated.'

"'To be sure,' he replied, 'and in that corner yonder stands the water
butt in which I used to swim my boat that I had cut out all myself; and
it sailed well too. But since then I have learned a very different kind
of sailing.'

"'Yes, but before that we went to school,' said she, 'and then we were
prepared for confirmation. How we both cried on that day! But in the
afternoon we went hand in hand up to the round tower and saw the view
over Copenhagen and across the water; then we went to Fredericksburg,
where the king and queen were sailing in their beautiful boat on the
canals.'

"'But I had to sail on a very different voyage elsewhere and be away
from home for years on long voyages,' said the old sailor.

"'Ah yes, and I used to cry about you,' said she, 'for I thought you
must be lying drowned at the bottom of the sea, with the waves sweeping
over you. And many a time have I got up in the night to see if the
weathercock had turned; it turned often enough, but you came not. How
well I remember one day the rain was pouring down from the skies, and
the man came to the house where I was in service to take away the dust.
I went down to him with the dust box and stood for a moment at the
door,--what shocking weather it was!--and while I stood there the
postman came up and brought me a letter from you.

"'How that letter had traveled about! I tore it open and read it. I
laughed and wept at the same time, I was so happy. It said that you were
in warm countries where the coffee berries grew, and what a beautiful
country it was, and described many other wonderful things. And so I
stood reading by the dustbin, with the rain pouring down, when all at
once somebody came and clasped me round the waist.'

"'Yes, and you gave him such a box on the ears that they tingled,' said
the old man.

"'I did not know that it was you,' she replied; 'but you had arrived as
quickly as your l