as a pony's mane."

Such were Christina's thoughts, while she bit her lips to hide if
possible her inclination to be angry, and to laugh at the same time. And
in truth her dislike of the Count did not exaggerate the ridiculousness
of the appearance of the tall ungainly figure--large-boned and
stiff-backed--that now stood before her--with a nose so absurdly
aquiline that it would have done for a caricature--coarse-skinned
cheeks, and a stare of military impudence that shocked and nearly
frightened the high-bred, elegant-looking beauty on whom it was fixed.
And yet this individual, such as we have described, had been fixed on by
the higher powers for her husband--was this night to be treated as her
accepted lover, and, in short, had been closeted for hours every day
with her father--settling all the preliminaries of course--for the last
six weeks. Christina looked once more at the insolent stare of the
triumphant soldier, and made a vow to die rather than speak to him--that
is, in the affirmative.

But thoughts of affirmatives and negatives did not seem to enter
Count Ericson's head--his grammatical education having probably been
neglected. He stood gaping at his prey as a tiger may be supposed to
cast insinuating looks upon a lamb, and made every now and then an
attempt to conceal either his awkwardness, or satisfaction, or both,
in immense fits of laughter, which formed the accompaniment of all
the remarks--and they were nearly as heavy as himself--with which he
favoured the company. Christina, on her part, if she had given way
to the dictates of her indignation, would have also favoured the
company with a few remarks, that in all probability would have put a
stop to the laughter of the lover, and choked her old father by
making a fish-bone stick in his throat. She was angry for twenty
reasons, one of them was having wasted a moment over her toilette to
receive such a visitor as Count Ericson; another was her father
having dared to offer her hand to such an uncouth wooer and
intolerable bore; and the principal one of all, was his having
rejected his own nephew--undoubtedly the handsomest of Dalecarlian
hussars--in favour of such a vulgar, ugly individual. The subject of
these flattering considerations seemed to feel at last that he ought
to say something to the young beauty, on whose pouting lip had
gathered something which was very different indeed from a smile, and
yet nearly as captivating. He accordingly turned h