ome-music! Home-baked, home-made,
home-music----hu!"

The Assessor sprang through the door; the Judge laughed; and the little
one became silent at the sight of a kringla,[1] through which the
beautiful eye of her brother Henrik spied at her as through an
eye-glass; whilst the other children came bounding to the
breakfast-table.

"Nay, nay, nay, my little angels, keep yourselves a little quiet," said
the mother. "Wait a moment, dear Petrea; patience is a virtue. Eva dear,
don't behave in that way; you don't see me do so."

Thus gently moralised the mother; whilst, with the help of her eldest
daughter, the little prudent Louise, she cared for the other children.
The father went from one to another full of delight, patted their little
heads, and pulled them gently by the hair.

"I ought, yesterday, to have cut all your hair," said he. "Eva has quite
a wig; one can hardly see her face for it. Give your papa a kiss, my
little girl! I'll take your wig from you early to-morrow morning."

"And mine too, and mine too, papa!" exclaimed the others.

"Yes, yes," answered the father, "I'll shear every one of you."

All laughed but the little one; which, half frightened, hid its
sunny-haired little head on the mother's bosom: the father raised it
gently, and kissed, first it, and then the mother.

"Now put sugar in papa's cup," said she to the little one; "look! he
holds it to you."

The little one smiled, put sugar in the cup, and Madame Folette began
her joyful circuit.

But we will now leave Madame Folette, home-baked bread, the family
breakfast, and the morning sun, and seat ourselves at the evening lamp,
by the light of which Elise is writing.

TO CECILIA.

I must give you portraits of all my little flock of children; who now,
having enjoyed their evening meal, are laid to rest upon their soft
pillows. Ah! if I had only a really good portrait--I mean a painted
one--of my Henrik, my first-born, my summer child, as I call
him--because he was born on a Midsummer-day, in the summer hours both of
my life and my fortune; but only the pencil of a Correggio could
represent those beautiful, kind, blue eyes, those golden locks, that
loving mouth, and that countenance all so perfectly pure and beautiful!
Goodness and joyfulness beam out from his whole being; even although his
buoyant animal life, which seldom allows his arms or legs to be quiet,
often expresses itself in not the most graceful manner. My
eleven-years-old b