The Emperor of Portugalia by Selma Lagerlöf
page 107 of 240 (44%)
page 107 of 240 (44%)
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there was not some hidden meaning back of the seine-maker's words.
The old man's tone sounded a bit peculiar when he spoke of the letter. Would he have sat there and made up such a long story only for talk's sake? Perhaps he had heard something. Perhaps Glory Goldie had written to him? It was quite possible that something so great had come to the little girl that she dared not send direct word to her parents, and wrote instead to the seine-maker, asking him to prepare them. "He'll come again to-morrow," thought Jan, "and then we'll hear all about it." But for some reason the seine-maker did not come back the next day, nor the day after. By the third day Jan had become so impatient to see his old friend that he got up and went over to his cabin, to find out whether there was anything in what he had said. The old man was sitting alone mending a drag-net when Jan came in. He was so crippled from rheumatism, he said, he had been unable to leave the house for several days. Jan did not want to ask him outright if he had received a letter from Glory Goldie. He thought he would attain his object more easily by approaching it in the indirect way the other had taken. So he said: "I've been thinking of what you told us about Glory Goldie the last time you were at our place." The seine-maker looked up from his work, puzzled. It was some |
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