black stuff gowns and close-fitting caps embroidered with gold, sat silent in a row, along by the window, with their brown hands motionless on their laps, grasping folded pocket handkerchiefs. Their husbands, dressed in homespun, stood against the wall close to them, looking just as serious.
Jenson, the chairman of the parish council, with his purple turkey-like beak, was the only one quite at ease, and his voice rang out like that of a man accustomed to move in good society.
The ladies were seated in arm-chairs round the table in the middle of the room, their silk trains flowing over the carpeted floor. The tongues wagged merrily here, in that kind of conversation where no one knows either what they say themselves or what the others answer. The conversation was led by the wife of one of the landowners, a towering lady in green satin and white lace, who had just returned from a visit to Copenhagen, and was untiring in relating her experiences. The others eagerly echoed her praises of the extensions and improvements in the town. Only Mrs Mortensen, the portly wife of the schoolmaster, who had not been vouchsafed a visit to the capital for the last twenty years, sat pursing up her mouth in a contemptuous manner; and at last she protested loudly that she hated Copenhagen, and that for her part she would rather die than set her foot in it.
Her remarks called forth a perfect storm of
