Susanna at that time was tall or short for her age--I only know I
thought her at least of the same height as myself, though she must
really have been half a head shorter; the difference was probably made
up by my admiration.

I remember her, as she went to church on Sundays with her mother, a
little, pale, soberly-clad, busy woman, who was always, except on Sunday
mornings, knitting a long, dreary stocking. Susanna walked along the
sand-strewn path to church in a white or blue dress, with a dark
shepherdess hat on her head, a little white pocket-handkerchief folded
behind a very large old hymn-book, and white stockings, and shoes with a
band crossed over the instep. I did not think there could be a prettier
costume in the world than Susanna's Sunday dress.

In church the minister's family sat in the first pew, right under the
pulpit, and we--my father and I--a few pews behind; and we children
exchanged many a Freemason's sign, intelligible only to ourselves.

But once Susanna wounded me deeply, even to bitter tears. It became
evident to me that she had made my father the subject of one of her
lively remarks. With his good strong voice, he used to sing the hymns in
the simple country fashion, very loud; but--what I and many others
considered very effective--at the end of each verse he added a peculiar
turn to the last note, which did not belong to the tune, and was of his
own composition. This had been made a subject of remark at the
parsonage, and, like a little pitcher, Susanna had ears. When she
noticed that I had found this out, she looked very unhappy.

When Carl was thirteen, he was sent to the grammar-school in Bergen, and
the "expensive" tutor went away by the last steamboat that same autumn.