and he heard her mother’s sharp voice laying the responsibility on him because he had named the Lord. After pacing the floor several times, he regained his composure.
“I am going abroad now,” said he, with a certain shyness; “I have asked my sisters to take an interest in you during my absence, and when I come back we will try what further we can do. Farewell! We shall meet again, no doubt, before I start.”
He then walked so hastily into the next room that she had not even time to grasp his hand.
She saw him again, where she had least expected it, and that was in the pulpit, near the choir just in front of her, as she stood among the girls, on the church floor, to be confirmed.
She was so excited over this that her thoughts were long absent from the sacred rite for which she had prepared with humility and prayer. Yes, even Ödegaard’s old father gazed long at his son, as the latter came forward to open the service. Soon Petra was to be once more startled in church; for who should she see sitting rather farther down the aisle, in stiff, new clothes, but Pedro Ohlsen! He was just stretching his neck that he might look over the heads of the boys at the group of girls and get a glimpse of her. He drew back again at once,
