134 STRAY-AWAYS 



made her face memorable among the other kindly 

 ones as the last farvel reached our ears. 



The basket of fruit and the bunches of roses that 

 she had brought with her exhaled a perfumed com- 

 panionship that was specially acceptable in the 

 crowded Damen Koupee. It was several stations 

 before the last market-woman had squeezed her way 

 past us to the platform, and even then we had scarcely 

 heart to begin upon the peaches; the moment, how- 

 ever, did arrive when the problem of the peachstone 

 had to be met, in secrecy and silence, and it was not 

 till then that we were aware of a line of faces intent 

 upon us over the top of the partition. They were 

 schoolgirls, full of motionless, intelligent interest; 

 they studied us as they might have studied a rail- 

 way novel, and with all due modesty, we may add 

 that, to the best of our belief, they did not skip a 

 word. 



We were on our way to Silkeborg, a measure 

 forced on us not only by the passionate enthusiasm 

 of guide-books, but also by the fact that the Danish 

 diffidence as to all things Danish vanished at the 

 mention of Silkeborg; it was felt to be a certainty, 

 and it needed no apologist. To get there from Hou 

 it was necessary to change twice, and a good deal of 

 spare time was available in which to study the sen- 

 tences written for our learning by our late hostess 

 in the end of our Murray. Written Danish has, at 

 a first glance, an air of resembling English that is 

 full of encouragement. The second glance faintly 

 discomposes ; is it perhaps more like German ? 

 Then some one speaks the sentence, and the brain 

 reels ; the sounds have no approximation to the 

 written words. A Russian-speaking German, with 

 his mouth full of hot potato, might come somewhere 

 near it in effect; but no adventitious aid brings the 



