Arla opened a window in the drawing-room to let out the hot air, and then began to walk up and down wrapped in a large shawl, enjoying the clear cold winter moonlight, which played over the snow and hid itself behind the trees in the park outside the window. There they were to meet to-morrow! Oh, if only he had said now, at once! If only she could slip out now in her thin gown, and he could wrap his cape around her to keep her warm--she did not remember that the men of to-day did not wear capes like Romeo--and if then they could have gone away together--far, far away from this prosaic world, where nobody understood that two hearts could meet and find each other from the first moment. She was not left alone long; a door was opened, light steps came tripping, and a white apparition in night-gown stood in the full light of the moonbeam. "But Arla, are you never, never coming?" "Why, Gurli dear, why aren't you asleep long ago?" "Eh? do you think I can sleep before I have heard something about the ball? Come in now; how cold it is here!" She was so cold that she shivered in her thin night-gown, but clung nevertheless to her sister, who was standing by the window. "Go; you are catching cold." "I don't care," she said, chattering. "I am not going till you come." Arla was, as usual, obliged to give in to the younger sister's strong will. She closed the window and they went into their room, where Gurli crept into bed again and drew the cover up to her very chin. Arla began to unfasten her dress and take the flowers out of her hair. "Well, I suppose you had a divine time," came a voice from the bed behind chattering teeth. There was nothing to be seen out on the floor. "Then you are much more of a schoolgirl than I. Is there perhaps any man who has told you that he loves you? Is there?" "Oh, but Gurli, what nonsense," said Arla laughing outright. "Has really one of Arvid's friends--" "Arvid's friends!" repeated Gurli with an expression of indescribable contempt. "Do you think such little boys would dare? Ph! I would give them a box on the ear,--that would be the quickest way of getting rid of such little whipper-snappers. No indeed; it is a man, a real _man_--a man that any girl would envy me." She was so pretty as she stood there in her white gown, with her dancing eyes and thick hair standing like a dark cloud around her rosy young face, that a light broke on Arla, and a suspicion of the truth flashed through her mind. "It is not possible that you mean--of course you don't mean--him--that you just spoke of--Captain Lagerskioeld?" "And what if it _were_ he!" cried Gurli, who in her triumph forgot to keep her secret. Arla's usual modest self-possession left her completely at this news. "Captain Lagerskioeld has told you that he loves you!" she cried with a sharp and cutting voice, unlike her usual mild tone. "Oh, how wicked, how wicked!" She hid her face in her hands and burst out crying.