tly body, round cheeks, plump from excess of health, a pair of large
grey eyes remarkable for their unmeaning expression, a little ruddy
mouth, which, preferred eating rather than speaking, which laughed
without meaning, and which now directed to Cousin Louise--he considered
himself related to her father--sundry speeches which we will string
together in our next chapter.

CHAPTER IV.

STRANGE QUESTIONS.

"Cousin Louise, are you fond of fish? for example, bream?" asked the
Landed-proprietor one evening as he seated himself beside Louise, who
was industriously working a landscape in her embroidery-frame.

"Oh, yes! bream is good fish," replied she, very phlegmatically, and
without looking up from her work.

"Oh, with red-wine sauce," said the Landed-proprietor, "delicate! I
have magnificent fishing on my estate at Oestanvik. Big fellows of
bream! I catch them myself."

"Who is that great fish there?" asked Jacobi from Henrik, with an
impatient sneer, "and what matters it to him whether your sister Louise
likes bream or not?"

"Because in that case she might like him, _mon cher_," replied Henrik;
"a most respectable and substantial fellow is my Cousin Thure of
Oestanvik. I advise you to cultivate his acquaintance. Well, now,
Gabriele dear, what wants your highness?--Yes, what is it?--I shall lose
my head about the riddle.--Mamma dear, come and help your stupid son!"

"No, no, mamma knows it already! Mamma must not tell," exclaimed
Gabriele, terrified.

"What king do you set up above all other kings, Master Jacobi?" for the
second time asked Petrea, who this evening had a sort of question mania.

"Charles the Thirteenth," replied he, and listened to Louise's answer to
the Landed-proprietor.

"Cousin Louise, are you fond of birds?" asked the Landed-proprietor.

"Oh, yes, particularly of fieldfares," answered Louise.

"Nay, that's capital!" said the Landed-proprietor. "There are
innumerable fieldfares on my estate of Oestanvik. I often go out myself
with my gun and shoot them for my dinner; piff-paff! with two shots I
have killed a whole dishful!"

"Don't you imagine, Master Jacobi, that the people before the Flood were
much wickeder than those of our time?" asked Petrea, who wished to
occupy the Candidate, nothing deterred by his evident abstraction, and
whom nobody had asked if she liked fieldfares.

"Oh, much--much better," answered Jacobi.

"Cousin Louise, are you fond of roast hare?" asked the