But when Madeleine timidly said that she considered it more than a recollection, and that she regarded herself as really engaged, she met with such a determined opposition that she did not know what to think.

"Young girls, often have these absurd adventures," said Fanny, "when they are not old enough to know better." She had herself been madly in love with a chimney-sweep--a common chimney-sweep, just think of that! The more Madeleine became accustomed to town life the easier she found it to deaden her recollections of the past.

But however successful she was in burying them out of sight for the time, they would recur whenever she was alone.

But she refused to listen to them; they could never become realities.

Still, she never cared to go home to Bratvold with her father, even for a few days.