That is not a
Danish name, but it was his. He came to our little town as next
in command of a company of gendarmes--mounted frontier police.
In the army he had served with my mother's brother, and naturally
father and mother, whose hospitable home welcomed every distinguished
stranger, did everything to make his existence, in what must to a
man of the world have been a dull little town, less lonely than it
would otherwise have been. He had a good record, had been brave in
the war, was the finest horseman in all the country, could skate and
dance and talk, and, best of all, was known to be a good and loving
son to his widowed mother, and greatly beloved by his comrades. So
he came into my life and singled me out before the other girls at
the balls and parties where we frequently met. Strange as it may
seem, for I was not a pretty girl, I had many admirers among the
young men in our town. Perhaps there wasn't really any admiration
about it; perhaps it was just because we knew each other as boys
and girls and were brought up together. Most of the young men in
our town were college students who had gone to school in Ribe and
came back at vacation time to renew old friendships and have a good
time with old neighbors.
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