wn.
There was an impression of probity about him that struck Hardy
forcibly. His manner was a trifle awkward to Hardy's notion, but it
was kindly. His daughter Helga was like her father. Her complexion was
clear and her voice musical. Her manner was, Hardy thought, not
refined. It was simple and straightforward, and to John Hardy she
appeared to want the ladylike tone of an English lady. The two boys
Karl and Axel were like English lads of the same age, frank and open,
and Hardy liked them.

The Pastor had his pipe in full glow--his daughter had filled it--and
Hardy, taught by his experience of the previous evening, lit a cigar.
The Pastor said that he had his duties to attend to, and some of his
parish children as he called them to visit, and that his daughter
Helga had also her visits to make. Hardy replied that he should write
to his mother and some business letters, and if dinner was at four, as
the Pastor had intimated, that he should like to fish in the evening,
to relieve Kirstin's doubts as to whether the frying-pan would be
wanted for breakfast on the morrow by catching some trout the night
before.

"And you will take us, Herr Hardy?" said Karl and Axel with some
anxiety.

"Come to my room at three," said Hardy; "I will begin to teach you how
to fish. I have a lighter fly rod, and we will prepare the tackle."

After dinner John Hardy and the boys went to the river. Hardy had a
sixteen-foot minnow rod, and put up a twelve-foot fly rod for the
boys, and showed them how to cast it. They took it in turns, and Karl
caught a trout. Hardy waded the shallows, fishing with a minnow, and
the trout for an hour were on the feed. The largest trout he caught
was over three pounds, and seventeen weighed nineteen pounds, by
Hardy's English spring balance.

John Hardy changed his clothes and came down to the room occupied by
Pastor Lindal and his family as a sitting-room, and found Froken Helga
playing on an old piano to the Pastor, who was smoking in his easy
chair. She at once ceased.

"We have caught more and larger fish, Herr Pastor," said Hardy; "the
fishing in the Gudenaa is good, and any doubt as to there being trout
for breakfast, and, if you wish, dinner, to-morrow, is at an end."

"You English are a thorough people," said the Pastor; "whether it be
sport or business, science or skill, you are to the front."

"Our faith is that we owe it to our Danish ancestors," said Hardy;
"the hard tenacity of the Vikings