ee him
following Susanna into

THE DAIRY.

"I see that we are going to have to-day for dinner onion-milk, one of
our most delicious national dishes, and my favourite eating."

"Usch! One gets quite stupid and sleepy when one only thinks on your
national dishes. And still more horrible than your onion-milk, and more
unnatural too, is your fruit-soup with little herrings."

"Fruit-soup with little herrings! Nay, that is the most superexcellent
food on the earth, a food which I might call a truly Christian dish."

"And I might call it a heathenish dish, which no true Christian man
could eat."

"From untold ages it has been eaten by free Norwegian men in the
beautiful valleys of Norway."

"That proves that you free Norwegians are still heathens."

"I can prove to you that the Norwegians were a Christian people before
the Swedes."

"That you may prove as much as you like, but I shall not believe it."

"But I will show it to you in print."

"Then I shall be certain that it is a misprint."

Harald laughed, and said something about the impossibility of disputing
with a Swedish woman. Should now anybody wish to know how it happens
that one finds Harald so continually in Susanna's company in the
brewhouse, in the store-room, in the dairy, we can only reply that he
must be a great lover of beer, and flour, and milk, or of a certain
spice in the every-day soup of life, called bantering.

Mrs. Astrid always breakfasted in her own room, but dined with Harald
and Susanna, and saw them often for an hour in the evening. Often during
dinner did the contention about Norway and Sweden break out; for the
slightest occasion was sufficient to make the burgomaster's daughter
throw herself blindly into the strife for fatherland; and, strange
enough, Mrs. Astrid herself sometimes seemed to find pleasure in
exciting the contest, as she brought upon the carpet one question or
another, as--

"I should like to know whether cauliflower is better in Norway or in
Sweden?" or, "I should like to know whether the corn is better in Sweden
or in Norway?"

"Quite certainly in Norway," said Harald.

"Quite decidedly in Sweden," cried Susanna. And vegetables, and fish,
and the coinage, and measures and weights, were all handled and
contended for in this way.

Of the corn in Norway, Susanna said, "I have not seen upon this whole
estate one single straw which may bear a comparison with that which I
have seen in Sweden."

"The cause of th