"I say that the sun, earth, water, trees, and flowers, are made only for
the rich, who can admire them from their fine carriages and pleasure
yachts."

"But, dear Magde, you have always--"

"Silence, child," interrupted Magde, "you do not know the insults to
which we females of humble birth are exposed."

"We are not born that we should thus be insulted," said Nanna.

"True, true; but then we should have been born as deformed and ugly as
those sins, which even our modesty will not preserve us from being
suspected of."

"Can that be possible!" thought Nanna. Magde, who as she spoke had
passed her hand upon her forehead, now removed it, and from the
expression of her dark eyes, which beamed with her accustomed
cheerfulness, and from her proud and lofty bearing, it could be
perceived that she had regained her usual self-possession.

"I grieve you, dear Nanna," said she in a softened tone of voice, "I do
not imagine you to be more than a dove which is still fostered within
the dovecote. But I was troubled, as I am sometimes, without really
knowing the cause."

"Is there no cause, then?" inquired Nanna.

"I can say that there is or is not a cause, and therefore shall remain
silent."