t yet,' she answered; and with that left the
room. Rollo brought his chair to Wych Hazel's side.

'She is going to get you some supper,' he said, with a smile.

'No, it will be all for you,--and you will give me part of it.
I should think you would come here very often, Mr. Rollo.'

'Do you?' said he, looking pleased. 'That shews I did right to
bring you here. Now you'll have a Norse supper--the first you
ever had. Gyda is Norse herself, I told you; she is a
Tellemarken woman. If we were in Norway now, there would be in
the further end of this room two huge cribs, which would be
the sleeping place for the whole family. Overhead would be
fishing nets hanging from the rafters, and a rack with a dozen
or more rifles and fowling-pieces. On the walls you would see
collars for reindeer, powder-horns and daggers. Gyda's
spinning-wheel _is_ here, you see; and her stove, besides the
fireplace for cooking. Her dairy is a separate building, after
Norway fashion, and so is her summer kitchen, where I know she
is this minute, making porridge. Can you eat porridge?'

'Truly I cannot say, Mr. Rollo. But I do not often "thwart"
myself--as you may have observed. Does the absence of Norse
blood make the fact doubtful?'

'Norse habit, say rather,' said Rollo, shaking his head;
'Norse habit, induced by Norse necessity. In many a Norwegian
homestead you would get little besides porridge, often. But
Gyda likes it, and so do I. At any rate, it is invariable for
a Norse meal, in this house. It is one of the things which can
be transplanted. Gyda would have enjoyed a row of reindeer's
horns bristling along the eaves of her cottage; but I told her
the boys of the Hollow would not leave them long if I set them
there.'

'But you are half Danish,' said Wych Hazel. 'And was it for
love of Denmark that you got your name?'

'Which name? If you please?'

'You know,' said Wych Hazel, with a shy blush, as if it were a
sort of freedom for her to know and speak it, 'they call you,
"Dane Rollo." '

'That's not my name, though,' said he, smiling. 'I am no
further a Dane than being born in Copenhagen makes me so. I am
half Norse, and a quarter German; Denmark has given me a
nickname,--that's all.'

'Then, if we were in Norway and this a considerable farmhouse,
we should have passed through an ante-room filled with all
sorts of things. Meal chests, and tools, and thongs of
leather, skins of animals and wild birds, snow shoes and casks
and litt