168 STRAY -AW AYS 



Some slight court was paid to us. A Danish lady, 

 whose daughter had recently been married, was 

 communicative in English, according to that law of 

 things that makes a foreign tongue so strangely 

 beguiling to confidence. Confessing sins would be 

 easy if one could do it in very good French ; revealing 

 the family skeleton a mere luxury if it also revealed 

 a proper acquaintance with subjunctives. We en- 

 couraged our good dame. Yes, Anna had done well. 

 Herr Larsen had taken a fine house in the (something 

 that began like a mouthful of hot potato and ended 

 in gade), and it had cost her a pretty penny to furnish 

 it. Oh yes, that was, of course, the custom in Den- 

 mark, that the bride's mother should furnish a house 

 for her son-in-law. After all, as Anna had married 

 her father's brother, the money had not gone out 

 of the family. We each took a long breath. It needs 

 one to accept this feature of Danish life with calm. 

 Anna had, it appeared, been brought up with a care 

 that well fitted her for the important position of 

 being her own aunt. She had spent a summer in a 

 farmhouse, learning all details of house and dairy 

 work, cooking and mending, and making butter with 

 her own hands ; ja, ja, why not ? — ^^ve had expressed 

 our unfeigned admiration of Anna — most of the 

 Danish young ladies spent a summer in a farmhouse 

 in order to learn these things. But Anna had not 

 learned to ride, nor yet to play lawn tennis ; Danish 

 ladies did not care for riding, and lawn tennis was as 

 yet seldom played. We began to think that Anna 

 had not, on the whole, a very good time. " All, yes," 

 sighed her mother, as if interpreting our silence, " I 

 have been in England. I was a time in London 

 staying. The English young ladies are having there 

 so much freedom. You can roAV in the Thames so 

 finely, or ride the haute ecole in Hitepark, and play 



