"Are you here!" said the mother, who came out of a side walk.
Otto stooped lower, and broke one of the beautiful stocks which hung over the border.
"Are you taking Louise's favorite flowers?" said she, smiling. "This bed is declared to be inviolable."
"I was so unfortunate as to break it!" said Otto, confused.
"He wished to gather the dark-red pink for my table-garland!" said Sophie. "If he took it, my conscience would be clear!"
And they all three walked along speaking of cherries, gooseberries, of the linen on the bleaching-ground, and of the warm summer's day.
In the evening Eva and the two sisters sat at their work, Otto and Wilhelm had taken their seats beside them. They spoke of Copenhagen.
Sophie knew how to introduce a number of little anecdotes, which she had gathered among the young ladies there. Otto entered into her ideas, and knew cleverly how to support what she said. What in reality interested young ladies was discussed.
"When a girl is confirmed, all manner of fancies awake!" said Otto. "She experiences a kind of inclination for the heart of man; but this may not be acknowledged, except for two friends to the clergyman and the physician. For these she has quite a passion, especially for the former; she stands in a kind of spiritual rapport with him. His physical amiability melts into the spiritual. Thus her first love one may designate clergyman-love."
"He preaches himself so deeply into her heart!" pursued Otto. "She melts into tears, kisses his hand, and goes to church; but not for the sake of God, but on account of the sweet clergyman!"
"O, I know that so well!" said Sophie, and laughed.
"Fie! you do not mean so!" said Louise; "and I do not know how you can say such a thing Mr. Thostrup! That is frightful! You do not in the least know a young girl's soul! do not know the pure feeling with which she inclines herself to the man who has laid open before her the holy things of religion! Do not make sport of the innocent, the pure, which is so far removed from every earthly impression!"
"I assure you," said Otto, smiling, "were I a poet, I would make the clergyman-love ridiculous in a hundred witty epigrams; and were I a teacher, I would protest against it from the chair."