And after all no one came. Ah yes, the two Frökener Jensens came, the two crooked little milliners--quiet, cordial, and smiling as they always were; they expressed their thanks and sent so many messages to the "School Director;" if they had been allowed they would have liked to have gone in to thank him themselves. But the Frökener Jensens were the only ones. Nils Hansen did not come, nor Laura; not one of her old pupils, not even Emilie Engel, poor dear Emilie of whom she had been thinking the whole time; no one came. If any one had come up to Fru Rendalen, and in the name of the meeting given her a box on the ear, the worthy lady could not have been more astonished. Gracious Powers! What did it mean? For her his lecture expressed their mutual life, thought for thought, what they had learned and experienced, and had confirmed from each other's lives. But it was more, it was her whole work with him first and last, from his birth till now, when he stood there bright, cultivated, eager, full of one great aim; the lecture was the expression of this work, this development in full flower, which was now about to bear fruit. How she loved him, how she admired him; _she_ knew what he had fought through and effected, in these eight-and-twenty years. She knew what was woven into every thought to which he now gave utterance. She had had visions of all this, but with no clearness; it was he who had brought _that_; she could never have expressed it clearly, but _he_ did. Was it not like a fairy tale, in spite of all their work? The dim idea she had had at first of ousting the Kurt inheritance by her own, and that she had afterwards daringly begun when she renovated the gloomy ancestral house, and made it clean and bright, devoting herself to bringing "confiding childish laughter" into it, was now complete. She had begun it confused, stupid, but stouthearted; and now it was accomplished by him, the child: was it not a fairy tale? How more than happy she was! She could have knelt down before the whole assemblage to thank God--yes, joyfully with a song, though she did not possess a single true note. She felt that if all these people came up to thank her she would not be able to control herself, but what would that matter, for he had done it all so well. And not one single person came! Yes, by-the-by, the Frökener Jensens came, but no one else; they were all going. But the old Dean? Yes, he sat there still pondering; a decided desire to speak to her might have made him rise--yes, to say something on the part of the others. It was only now, when almost every one was gone, that he began to move; he raised his eyes, looked inquiringly at her for a few moments, got up heavily, and came towards her at last. "Yes, dear Frue, it was cleverly done." "Yes, was it not?" "Very cleverly done indeed, but I would give a great deal that it had not been done." "But, Dean?"