UNDER THE WILLOW TREE. 4yt

was dead, and the father intended to marry again, in the capital,
where he had been promised a living as a messenger, which was
to be a very lucrative office. And the neighbours separated re-
gretfully, the children weeping heartily, but the parents promised
that they should at least write to one another once a year.

And Knud was bound apprentice to a shoemaker, for the big
boy could not be allowed to run wild any longer ; and moreover
he was confirmed.

Ah, how gladly on that day of celebration would he have been
in Copenhagen with little Joanna! but he remained in Kjége, and
had never yet been to Copenhagen, though the little town is only
five Danish miles distant from the capital ; but far across the
bay, when the sky was clear, Knud had seen the towers in the
distance, and on the day of his confirmation he could distinctly
see the golden cross onthe principal church glittering in the sun.

‘Ah, how often his thoughts were with Joanna! Did she think
of him? Yes. Towards Christmas there came a letter from her
father to the parents of Knud, to say that they were getting on
very well in Copenhagen, and especially might Joanna look for-
ward to a brilliant future on the strength of her fine voice. She
had been engaged in the theatre in which people sing, and was
already earning some money, out of which she sent her dear
neighbours of Kjége a dollar for the merry Christmas Eve. They
were to drink her health, she had herself added in a postscript ;
and in the same postscript there stood further, “ A kind greeting
to Knud.”

The whole family wept ; and yet all this was very pleasant—
those were joyful tears that they shed. Knud’s thoughts had
been occupied every day with Joanna; and now he knew that she
also thought of him; and the nearer the time came when his
apprenticeship would be over, the more clearly did it appear to
him that he was very fond of Joanna, and that she must be his
wife ; and when he thought of this, a smile came upon his lips,
and he drew the thread twice as fast as before, and pressed his
foot against the knee-strap. He ran the awl far into his finger,
but he did not care for that. He determined not to play the dumb
lover, as the two gingerbread lovers had-done: the story should
teach him a lesson.

And now he was a journeyman, and his knapsack’ was packed
ready for his journey: at length, for the first time in his life, he
was to go to Copenhagen, where a master was already waiting
for him. How glad Joanna would be! She was now seventeen
years old, and he nineteen.

Already in Kjége he had wanted to buy a gold ring for her ;
but he recollected that such things were to be had far better in
Copenhagen. And now he took leave of his parents, and on a
rainy day, late in the autumn, went forth on foot out of the town
of his birth. The leaves were falling down from the trees, and