l
importance to the family alliances of the royal house? Perhaps he was
mistaken. It had been seen.... She stopped suddenly, surprised
that Mogens who had at first been somewhat taken aback at all this
information, now looked quite pleased. He wasn't to sit there, and laugh
at her! She turned quite red.

"Are you very much interested in politics?" she asked timidly.

"Not in the least."

"But why do you let me sit here talking politics eternally?"

"Oh, you say everything so charmingly, that it does not matter what you
are talking about."

"That really is no compliment."

"It certainly is," he assured her eagerly, for it seemed to him she
looked quite hurt.

Camilla burst out laughing, jumped up, and ran to meet her father, took
his arm, and walked back with him to the puzzled Mogens.

When dinner was through and they had drunk their coffee up on the
balcony, the councilor suggested a walk. So the three of them went along
the small way across the main road, and along a narrow path with stubble
of rye on both sides, across the stile, and into the woods. There was
the oak and everything else; there even were still convolvuluses on the
hedge. Camilla asked Mogens to fetch some for her. He tore them all off,
and came back with both hands full.

"Thank you, I don't want so many," she said, selected a few and let the
rest fall to the ground. "Then I wish I had let them be," Mogens said
earnestly.

Camilla bent down and began to gather them up. She had expected him to
help her and looked up at him in surprise, but he stood there quite
calm and looked down at her. Now as she had begun, she had to go on, and
gathered up they were; but she certainly did not talk to Mogens for a
long while. She did not even look to the side where he was. But somehow
or other they must have become reconciled, for when on their way back
they reached the oak again, Camilla went underneath it and looked up
into its crown. She tripped from one side to the other, gesticulated
with her hands and sang, and Mogens had to stand near the hazelbushes to
see what sort of a figure he had cut. Suddenly Camilla ran towards him,
but Mogens lost his cue, and forgot both to shriek and to run away, and
then Camilla laughingly declared that she was very dissatisfied with
herself and that she would not have had the boldness to remain
standing there, when such a horrible creature--and she pointed towards
herself--came rushing towards her. But Mogens declare