in the Superior Court, that one could only value an autumn in Nature's lap after so laborious and health-destroying work as his life for many years had been. Then one day he received a letter from the unknown, reading thus:
"Be more successful than last time, at Mrs. Emmy Lund's on Tuesday, two o'clock. Please notice, two o'clock precisely."
"Does she mean so? Is she really coquettish? Yet I think I have been successful so far," said Bagger to himself, and waited for the Tuesday with comparative ease; in truth he did not at all understand why he should be troubled to go to town.
As early on Tuesday forenoon as proper, he went over to the farm, and was somewhat surprised that there was to be seen no preparation for a town journey. Ingeborg, in her usual morning dress, was seated at the sewing-table. He waited until towards twelve o'clock, calculating that two hours was the least she needed in which to dress and drive to town. The long hand threatened to touch the short hand at the number twelve, without any appearance of Ingeborg's noticing it. She only now and then cast a stealthy look at him, for it had not escaped her, nor the others, that he was in expectancy and excitement. When the clock struck twelve,—he
