I cannot say this as I ought, but, oh, be
comforted, for you will see the child again, and, remembering that
she waits for you, you will be glad to go when God calls you to meet
your Ulla in that other Fatherland."
"Ah, I will go now! I haf no wish to stay, for all my life is black
to me. If I had found that other little friend to fill her place, I
should not grieve so much, because she is weller there above than I
could make her here; but no; I wait for that other one; I save all
my heart for her; I send it, but it comes back to me; then I know my
hope is dead, and I am all alone in the strange land."
There was neither bitterness nor reproach in these broken words,
only a patient sorrow, a regretful pain, as if he saw the two lost
loves before him and uttered over them an irrepressible lament. It
was too much for Dolly and with sudden resolution she spoke out fast
and low,--
"Mr. Bopp, that was a mistake. It was not I you saw at the masque;
it was Dick. He played a cruel trick; he insulted you and wronged me
by that deceit, and I find it very hard to pardon him."
"What! what is that!" and Mr. Bopp looked up with tears still
shining in his beard, and intense surprise in every feature of his
face.
Dolly turned scarlet, and her heart beat fast as she repeated with
an unsteady voice,--
"It was Dick, not I."
A cloud swept over Mr. Bopp's face, and he knit his brows a moment
as if Dolly had not been far from right when she said "he never
would forgive the joke.
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