more impossible for her to explain away his wooing.
Whatever should she do? Oh! if only she had never walked home with Ane along the shore, this misfortune would perhaps never have happened!
At last she made up her mind to confide in her mother. As soon as she heard voices on the other side of the wall, where her parents had their room, she got up and dressed; carefully trying with the sponge to obliterate all trace of the night's struggles. In this she could not, however, have been very successful, for when she entered the kitchen where her mother was already busy lighting the stove, the latter immediately broke out with, "Good heavens, child! whatever is the matter?"
At first Hansine would not say anything, and busied herself with taking down milk pans from the rack. But when her mother saw that her daughter's silence on this occasion had nothing to do with her usual taciturnity, she continued to press her, and ended by becoming almost angry, and took hold of her arm to force her to speak; then Hansine began with a dogged expression to tell her that the night before she had met the curate down by the shore, and that he—that he
She could not get any further.
"Well, what then? do tell me, dear child!" said her mother.
