into the casino for some hot coffee, their merry
voices and laughter filling the room. Seldom is there gathered together a
company of finer men and women, boys and girls, than Karen saw before
her. Descendants of the Vikings these were,--golden-haired, keen-eyed and
crimson-cheeked.

"Look at that great fellow, taller than all the others," Fru Ekman
whispered to Karen. "He is the champion figure-skater of Europe."

"He looks like Baldur, the god of the sun," Karen whispered in reply; and
then forgot everything else in watching the gay company.

"I have never seen so many people having such a good time before," she
explained to Fru Ekman after a little while. "At the Sea-gull Light there
was never anything like this. It is more like the stories of the
gathering of the gods, than just plain Sweden.

"I suppose Birger is going to try for a skating prize some day," she
added rather wistfully.

Fru Ekman bent and kissed the little girl. "Yes," she answered, "that is
why he puts on his skates every day and practices figure-skating on the
ice in the canals. But keep a brave heart, little Karen. You, too, shall
wear skates some day."

Karen's face lighted up with a happy smile, and a fire of hope was
kindled in her heart which made the long hours shorter, and the hard work
at the gymnasium easier to bear.

CHAPTER XIII

YULE-TIDE JOYS

It was the day before Christmas,--such a busy day in the Ekman household.
In fact, it had been a busy week in every household in Sweden, for before
the tree is lighted on Christmas Eve every room must be cleaned and
scrubbed and polished, so that not a speck of dirt or dust may be found
anywhere.

Gerda, with a dainty cap on her hair, and a big apron covering her red
dress from top to toe, was dusting the pleasant living-room; and Karen,
perched on a high stool at the dining-room table, was polishing the
silver. The maids were flying from room to room with brooms and brushes;
and in the kitchen Fru Ekman and the cook were preparing the lut-fisk and
making the rice pudding.

The lut-fisk is a kind of smoked fish--salmon, ling, or cod--prepared in
a delicious way which only a Swedish housewife understands. It is always
the very finest fish to be had in the market, and before it reaches the
market it is the very finest fish that swims in the sea. Every fisherman
who sails from the west coast of Sweden--and there are hundreds of
them--gives to his priest the two largest fish wh