“Everybody can’t be as well as you, Uncle. And I am only a girl. Oh! if only Mother were alive so that I might have somebody to talk to.”
Laura’s voice trembled and the tears were already in her eyes. Her guardian grew alarmed:
“What’s the matter? What do you want to do, then, my dear child?”
Then Laura could restrain her desire no longer:
“I ... I want to go to a boarding school ... in Switzerland. You get such an appetite there. It would do my chest good. Elvira Lähnfeldt at Trefvinge is going to Neuchatel. Stellan told me so, for he was invited. Neuchatel is said to be so very suitable. And fancy to be able to talk French properly—and then the air,—”
Old Hermansson’s horizon did not stretch beyond the frontiers of his own country. He was dumbfounded by the audacity of the proposal:
After the first attack Laura collected her forces for a more systematic siege:
“Oh, Uncle, you should live at Selambshof,” she wailed. “You would be ill in a week. Yes, it is so unpleasant at home since that dreadful business with Brundin.”
Laura glanced at her guardian; she seemed satisfied with the effect and continued:
“It is worst with Peter. He curses like a farm labourer and he swears at table. He is really no company for a young girl!”
That also had a good effect. Old Hermansson could not bear Peter since he had exposed Brundin. Laura already knew so much about the human heart. The old man nodded pensively:
“I admit that your brother Peter is not all that he ought to be. But if it is not always pleasant at home, you know that you are always welcome at Ekbacken.”
“Thank you. You are so awfully kind, both you and Herman. But ...” (Laura flushed beneath her self-induced pallor and glanced archly at her guardian) “but ... it looks strange for me to be always here. I don’t know if it is right any longer and then I thought that both you and Herman would like me to have some sort of education.”
Here she was interrupted by an attack of coughing, and she put her hand to her chest with an anxious and sudden air of distraction.
Her guardian looked very perplexed. As a matter of fact he looked upon the affection of the young pair for each other with some pleasure. He himself had originally been a poor clerk who had risen to his present position by marrying the daughter of his employer. To him Selambshof and the Selambs still seemed an old distinguished place and family. Yes! secretly he was even flattered by Laura’s walks with Herman. The thought of his future daughter-in-law being in a Swiss boarding school like the young lady at Trefvinge was also pleasant. So he slowly assumed an expression which was more of anxiety than of opposition.