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 his large light eyes from his plate for a moment, and with a mouth still filled with a leg and wing of a capercailzie, enquired-- "What do you think of Alexander the Great, madam?" This was too much. Even her rage disappeared, and she burst into a loud laugh at the serious face of the querist. "I never think of Alexander the Great at all," she said. "I only recollect, that when I was reading his history, I could hardly make out whether he was most of a fool or a madman." Ericson swallowed the leg and the wing of the capercailzie without any further mastication, and launched out in a torrent of admiration of the most prodigious courage the world had ever seen. "If he had been as prodigiously wise," replied Christina, "as he was prodigiously courageous, he would have learned to govern himself before he attempted to govern the world." Ericson blushed from chin to forehead with vexation, and answered in an offended tone-- "How can a woman enter into the fever of noble thoughts that impels a brave man to rush into the midst of dangers, and leads him to despise life and all its petty enjoyments to gain undying fame?"