a sobered and somewhat crestfallen lad. But, anyhow, I don't like
that kind of play. I don't see why the villain on the stage is any
better than the villain on the street. There are enough of them
and to spare. And think if he _had_ killed her!

The years passed, and the day came at last when, having proved my
fitness, I received my certificate as a duly enrolled carpenter of
the guild of Copenhagen, and, dropping my tools joyfully and in
haste, made a bee-line for Ribe, where she was. I thought that
I had moved with very stealthy steps toward my goal, having grown
four years older than at the time I set the whole community by the
ears. But it could not have been so, for I had not been twenty-four
hours in town before it was all over that I had come home to propose
to Elizabeth; which was annoying but true. By the same sort of
sorcery the town knew in another day that she had refused me, and
all the wise heads wagged and bore witness that they could have
told me so. What did I, a common carpenter, want at the "castle"?
That was what they called her father's house. He had other plans
for his pretty daughter.

As for Elizabeth, poor child! she was not yet seventeen, and was
easily persuaded that it was all wrong; she wept, and in the goodness
of her gentle heart was truly sorry; and I kissed her hands and
went out, my eyes brimming over with tears, feeling that there was
nothing in all the wide world for me any more, and that the farther
I went from her the better. So it was settled that I should go
to America. Her mother gave me a picture of her and a lock of her
hair, and thereby roused the wrath of the dowagers once more; for
why should I be breaking my heart over Elizabeth in foreign parts,
since she was not for me? Ah, but mothers know better! I lived on