In the evening, the whole forest seemed one vast fairy-land, with its myriad sparkling lights, strains of soft music, gay crowds and waving flags. Multitudes of lamps, of all colors and sizes, swung from the trees, throwing a romantic fairy-like light over the rustling beech-trees. Torches had been stuck wherever it had been possible to fasten them, and here and there a huge bon-fire flung its lurid glare over the whole scene, sending up great volumes of black smoke into the darkness overhead. Three very tired and sleepy children were those whom Fru Ingemann put to bed that night, even before their usual time. The happiness of the long day--so full of new sights, surprises and excitement for Valdemar as well as Karl--was only marred by the leave-taking of Uncle Oscar for his long trip back to his home in far-away Chicago. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 21: "No, thank you. Nothing! nothing!"] [Footnote 22: Monk's Mountain.] [Footnote 23: Manufacturers and Sealers' Associations Building.] CHAPTER VIII SKAGEN TO Valdemar it seemed like a week, rather than just three days, since he had bidden good-bye to his mother, Karen and Aunt Amalia, and brought Karl with him up to the little painter's village of Skagen on the Kattegat, where they were to spend the months of July and August visiting Uncle Thor, who had built for himself one of the most charming of all the pretty, long, low, vine-covered homes of the famous Artist-Colony, of which he, as Court Painter, was by far the most distinguished member. Up here was Uncle Thor's summer studio, with its row of fifteen great windows between which glorious red hollyhocks towered almost up to the red roof-tiles. On the south, the windows overlooked a gay, flower-massed garden where, on warm summer afternoons, the great sculptor loved to chat with painter-friends, and serve tea under his wind-swept old elms. Here, in this bare and lofty studio, with its half-finished paintings and groups in clay, and, if the day be chilly, its crackling wood hearth-fire at the further end, throwing a flickering, rosy light over all,--here Valdemar was to spend many hard, long hours every day under his gifted godfather's instruction. [Illustration: "IN THE CENTRE OF THE STUDIO STOOD THE UNFINISHED STATUE OF THE LITTLE CROWN PRINCE"] "In the whole of Denmark was there ever any boy half so fortunate?" thought Valdemar to himself, as he made a mental resolution to show Uncle Thor his appreciation by the hardest work of his life. Valdemar could work hard, and he meant not only to prove to his uncle what earnest toil and definite purpose could do, but also to win his offer to send him to the Academy in the fall. On a low platform, in the centre of the studio, stood the unfinished statue of the little Crown Prince Olaf of Norway which Uncle Thor had commenced in Copenhagen at the Royal Palace. Day by day it was nearing completion.