Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: driving us. You brought the bride here, and you shall drive us to our wedding. Shall he not, little Lotta?" I wondered whether she thought of that first evening, and of the spiteful comments she had made. She stared above the heads of the people into the empty air, and a deep flush overspread her face. She seemed to answer with a slight bend of the head, and turned away quickly. So Fritz Roden had to take all the handshakings and congratulations upon himself, while she stood with tightly compressed lips at the window. In her bearing there was something of impatience, as if she would throw a burden from her shoulders. CHAPTER V. Two weeks had passed since the betrothal. A wonderfully short time ! But it lay like lead upon all our hearts ; the only sunbeam to be found was in Fritz Roden's eyes. Every day at five o'clock he came up, and remained with us until evening. Generally he had a little package in his hand, or playfully hidden behind him, and he would hide it in Lotta's work-basket, or throw it unexpectedly into her lap. There were odd gifts wrapped in these little parcels, such as only a man living in a little town would purchase : fancy writing-paper and painted envelops ; wonderful work-bags with useless scissors ; and thimbles much too large for Lotta's finger ; perfumes that were simply frightful, and time and again costly bouquets of fragrant violets ; these last at least were appreciated. I was sorely puzzled by Lotta's manner of receiving these gifts. She was always coolly gracious ; but I often thought she would have thrown them out of the window before his very face had she dared. She put them all together in a bureau drawer which she had emptied for that purpose. She avoided his tender, loving glance persistently ; and his playful manner receive...