Indeed, if he had gone there, all he
would have seen was his ten-foot fence, and he would have
taken pride to himself that he had it built so high.
When the day of the first raising came, and the frame
slipped into the mortises so nicely, as I had
foreordained that it should do, I was so happy that I
could scarcely keep my secret from my mother. Indeed,
that day I did run back to dinner. And when she asked me
what pleased me so, I longed to let her know; but I only
smoothed her cheeks with my hands and kissed her on both
of them, and told her it was because she was so handsome
that I was so pleased. She said she knew I had a secret
from her, and I owned that I had, but she said she would
not try to guess, but would wait for the time for me to
tell her.
And so the summer sped by. Of course I saw my
sweetheart, as I then called my mother, less and
less. For I worked till it was pitch-dark at the castle;
and after it was closed in, so I could work inside, I
often worked till ten o'clock by candlelight. I do not
know how I lived with so little sleep; I am afraid I
slept pretty late on Sundays. But the castle grew and
grew, and the common-room, which I was most eager to
finish wholly before cold weather, was in complete order
three full weeks before my mother's birthday came.
Then came the joy of furnishing it.
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