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SKETCHES. 347
really spoilt children do this. But the father was too se-
vere, where he found the mother too weak. He was very
anxious to send the boys out of the house into a good
school, that they might “learn something,” and that they
might “be made men of.” Six eaglets had already left the
eyrie and winged their flight to distant parts. ‘The moth-
er’s heart had said “ Nay” to each flight, but her reason
had said “ Aye,” and so it was done as the father wished
it. The youngest boy alone remained now. “He also,”
said the father, “must go away, must out in the world.”
-But now the mother said “No, he was still too young, too
tender, too weak.” —“ Just therefore,” the father argued,
“he must go away from home, out amongst other boys,
to lead a more vigorous, a fresher life; the boy was al-
ready nearly ten years old.” The father’s will triumphed
over the mother’s; but when he tore her youngest one out
of her arms, he broke the thread which tied her heart to
her husband. So Ellina felt, for she fancied that he had
used her harshly. When she thus found herself alone, she
found herself doubly alone. She had not any longer a
little curly head to fondle when she went to bed at night ;
no warm, tiny breath near her pillow rocked her heart to
rest and sleep; no little arms full of trust encircled her
neck night and morning; no childish prattle in the day
made her forget what her soul had lost. Gone was every
thing, and the worst of it was, that also Axel was away, not
only from honie, but also — from her heart. She felt it so
empty that it almost frightened her. Yes, it is probable
that she would have borne the absence of her boys and her
loneliness very differently, if she only could have held fast
in her heart her husband’s image, as bright as it was in
days gone by.
Again it was autumn, and all the domestic duties for the
autumn had to be attended to, all those duties which Ellina
had never loved, and which now appeared to her more irk-
some than ever. [Bullocks and sheep were to be killed for
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