IN THE STATE OF DENMARK 



149 



be confidential in German was an alleviation. She 

 told us that the Pastor Preior was to preach, and 

 instructed us in our rare good fortune in being present ; 

 she was, in fact, agreeably conversational throughout 

 the service, and the resolution to quit the building 

 on the first symptom of Pastor Preior's ascent to the 

 pulpit became a two- 

 fold impoliteness. Yet 

 the flight was carried 

 out, unfalteringly, and 

 in the expansive bosom 

 of that elderly dame 

 the seeds of a prejudice 

 against the English 

 have doubtless been 

 soAvn. 



A cold white sun 

 looked over the edge 

 of the rain-cloud while 

 we scudded towards 

 the Kongens Ny Torv, 

 tlie wide and splendid 

 square into which the 

 greater streets of 

 Copenhagen empty 

 themselves, where 

 stand the Theatre 

 Royal, the Hotel 

 d'Angle-terre, and 



many ornate buildings that might have been banks, 

 or town halls, or flats, and were creamy-coloured 

 and modern. Across the Kongens Ny Torv, as we 

 emerged from the all-connecting Ostergade, stretched 

 two lines of people, gazing after a landau that had 

 passed between them, with a broad-shouldered figure 

 in it and a red-coated coachman on the box. It 



THE HERR PASTOR PREIOR WILL 

 PREACH TO-DAY ! '' 



