"And the whirlwind, accident, the unknown power, brought them
together so that the obligation was redeemed?"
"Yes, yes!"
"Let us, then," continued Bagger, "drink a toast to the wind, the
accident, the moving power, unknown and yet controlling. To those
of us who, as yet, are unprovided for and under forty, it will at
some time undoubtedly bring a bride; to those who are already
provided for will come the expected in another form. So a toast to
the wind that came in here and flickered the lights; to the
unknown, that brings us the wished for; and to ourselves, that we
may be prepared to receive it when announced."
"Bravo!" exclaimed the bridegroom, looking upon his bride.
"Puh-h-h!" thought Bagger, seating himself with intense relief, "I
have come out of it somewhat decently after all. The deuce take me
before I again express a sentimentality."
How Counsellor Bagger that night could have fallen asleep, between
memory, or longing and discontent, is difficult to tell, had he
not on his arrival home found a package of papers, an interesting
theft case. He sat down instantly to read, and day dawned ere they
were finished. His last thought, before his eyelids closed, was,--
Two years in the House of Correction.
III.
A month later, toward the close of September, two ladies, twenty
or twenty-two years of age, were walking in a garden about ten
miles from Copenhagen. Although the walks were quite wide,
impediments in them made it difficult for the ladies to go side by
side.
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