en the jingle of the piano is like the toothache."

"We are all accustomed to it," said the Pastor; "but I only hear
Helga's voice."

So the piano appeared, and a man to tune it, and Froken Helga played
it. The tone was good, and the Pastor listened to the old Danish songs
he had heard so many times with delight.

One evening Helga had to make a visit to a sick woman, and the Pastor
puffed away at his teacup of a pipe, with longer puffs than usual.
Hardy saw there was something in the way, and at last it struck him
that he missed his daughter's song. He had once told Hardy that her
voice was like her mother's.

Hardy sat down to the piano, and played and sang an English ballad,
and then another. He then sang a plaintive German song, with a manly
pathos and taste, that showed the well-bred gentleman he was.

The Pastor applauded loudly, and Hardy turned round, and, lo! there
was Froken Helga, with a look on her face that Hardy never forgot, so
intense was her surprise.

"Helga," said her father, "go and thank Herr Hardy for his singing to
me instead of you; he saw I missed you, my child, and he sang to
divert me."

"A thousand thanks!" said Helga, using a common Danish expression. "I
never heard so beautiful a song! But why did you not tell us that you
could play and sing before?"

"Because I preferred Froken Helga's voice to that of Praesten's
Englaender," said Hardy.

Nothing would induce Froken Helga to sing that evening; her father
almost commanded her, but she would not. At last she said, "I cannot,
father; Herr Hardy sings too well."

This speech was not forgotten for a long time, and Karl and Axel
teased their sister with perpetual questions as to whether they or she
was not doing something or other too well. If Karl caught no trout, he
explained to his sister that he was afraid of fishing too well. If
Axel had dirty hands, his explanation was that he was afraid of
washing them too well.

John Hardy had visited the Gudenaa within walking distance, or boating
distance, and he wished to make longer expeditions from the parsonage.
He inspected several of the farms near, and at last arranged with
farmer Niels Jacobsen to rent stabling for three horses. He then wrote
the following letter, addressed to a groom at Hardy Place:--

"Robert Garth,

"I want you to bring Buffalo to me in Denmark. The horse is to be
taken to Harwich, and thence on board the steamer for Esbjerg. The
steamers are fitted up with