"That lady," says my cousin, "is a compatriot of yours. She is a very fine person, a very learned lady; she has been looking up referats in the University Bibliothek. Professor Sturm--he is a good friend of me--did tell me. I forget her name; she is married. I suppose her husband he stay at home and keep the house!" My cousin has just been refused by a young lady dentist, who says she is too comfortably off to change for a small housekeeping business; so I excuse his sarcasm. We leave as the time draws on, and sleigh down to the steamer. I like the jingle of the bells, and I feel a little sad; there is a witchery about the country that creeps into one and works like a love-philter, and if one has once lived up there, one never gets it out of one's blood again. I go on board, and lean over and watch the people; there are a good many for winter time. The bell rings. Two sleighs drive up, and my compatriot and her friends appear; she shakes hands with them, and comes leisurely up the gang-way. The thought flits through me that she would cross it in just that cool way if she were facing death; it is foolish, but most of our passing thoughts are just as inconsequent. She calls down a remembrance to some one in such pretty Norwegian, much prettier than mine, and then we swing round. Handkerchiefs wave in every hand. Never have I seen such persistent handkerchief-waving as at the departure of a boat in Norway; it is a national characteristic. If you live at the mouth of a fjord, and go to the market-town at the head of it for your weekly supply of coffee-beans, the population give you a "send off" with fluttering kerchiefs; it is as universal as the "Thanks." Hans Jörgen says I am Anglicized, and only see the ridiculous side, forgetting the kind feelings that prompt it.