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It flew open, and she stepped out; the light fell upon her dear face, and he could see that she smiled as she thanked them, and appeared quite overcome. Knud looked straight in her face, and she looked at him, but she did not recognize him. A man, with a glittering star on his breast, gave her his arm, and people said the two were engaged to be married.
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 Kjöge 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."
Joanna was not proud at all; he noticed that through her he was invited by her parents to remain the whole evening with them, and she poured out the tea and gave him a cup herself; and afterwards she took a book and read aloud to them, and it seemed to Knud as if the story was all about himself and his love, for it agreed so well with his own thoughts.
And then they parted. Knud did not offer her his hand, but she seized it, and said, "Surely you will shake hands with your sister at parting, old playfellow!" And she smiled through the tears that were rolling over her cheeks, and she repeated the word "brother" and certainly there was good consolation in that and thus they parted.
The two children still continued to play together by the elder-tree, and under the willow; and the little maiden sang beautiful songs, with a voice that was as clear as a bell. Knud, on the contrary, had not a note of music in him, but knew the words of the songs, and that of course is something.
There were carpets, there were window curtains quite down to the floor, and around were flowers and pictures, and a mirror into which there was almost danger that a visitor might step, for it was as large as a door; and there was even a velvet chair. Knud saw all this at a glance: and yet he saw nothing but Joanna.
They had eaten and drunk together and were gathered in the "Storstue," the big room of the house, when Knud saw Svend whispering aside with his men. With a sudden foreboding of evil, he threw his arms about Valdemar's shoulders and kissed him. The young King, who was playing chess with one of his men, looked up in surprise and asked what it meant.
His master's wife did not like his gallivanting abroad every evening, as she expressed it; and she shook her head; but the master only smiled. "He is only a young fellow," he said. But Knud thought to himself: "On Sunday I shall see her, and I shall tell her how completely she reigns in my heart and soul, and that she must be my little wife.
The streets seem to stretch themselves along just as they please. The houses do not like standing in regular ranks. Gables with little towers, arabesques, and pillars, start out over the pathway, and from the strange peaked roofs water-spouts, formed like dragons or great slim dogs, extend far over the street. Here in the market-place stood Knud, with his knapsack on his back.
Ah, how gladly on that day of celebration would he have been in Copenhagen with little Joanna! but he remained in Kjöge, 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 on the principal church glittering in the sun.
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