We're living a peculiar life,
With serious words and serious strife.
Munch.

Whilst we leave the pale Mrs. Astrid alone with her dark thoughts, we are led by certain extraordinary discords to look around in

THE BREWHOUSE.

Harald found himself there for the purpose of tasting the new beer which Susanna had brewed; but before he had swallowed down a good draught, he said, with a horrible grimace, "It is good for nothing—good for nothing at all!"

Somewhat excited, Susanna made reply, "Perhaps you will also assert that Baroness Rosenhjelm's brewing-recipe is good for nothing!"

"That I assert decidedly. Does not she give coffee-parties? And a coffee-bibber is always a bad housewife; and as Baroness Rosenhjelm is a coffee-bibber, therefore——"

"I must tell you," interrupted Susanna, vehemently, "that it is unbecoming and profane of you to talk in this way of such an excellent lady, and a person of such high rank!"

"High! How high may she be?"

"A deal higher than you are, or ever can be, that I can assure you!"

"Higher than me! then of a certainty she goes on stilts. Now, I must say that is the very tip-top of gentility and politeness. One may forgive a lady giving coffee-parties, and decorating and dressing herself up, but to go on stilts, only on purpose to be higher than other folks, and to be able to look over their heads, that is coming it strong over us. How can such a high person ever come down low enough to brew good beer? But a Swedish woman can never brew good beer, for——"

"She will not brew a single drop for you abominable Norwegians, for you have neither reason, nor understanding, nor taste, nor——"

Out of the brewhouse flew Susanna, in the highest indignation, throwing down a glass of beer which Harald had poured out during the contention for her, but which now would have gone right over if he had not saved it by a spring.

Towards the evening of the same day we see the contending parties again met in

THE GARRET.

"Are you yet angry?" asked Harald, jokingly, as he stretched in his head through the garret-door, where Susanna was sitting upon a flour-tub, as on a throne, with all the importance and dignity of a store-room queen, holding in her hand a sceptre of the world-famous sweet herbs—thyme, marjoram, and basil, which she was separating into little bundles, whilst she cast a searching glance around her well-ordered kingdom.

The bread-chests were heaped up, for she had just baked oaten-bread; bacon-sausages and hams hung full of gravy, from the roof, as well as great bundles of dried fish; little bags full of all kinds of vegetables stood in their appointed places, and so on.

Harald looked also around the garret, and truly with the eye of a connoisseur, and said, although he had yet received no answer to his question—

"It is certain that I never saw a better provided or better arranged store-room!"

Susanna would not exhibit one gleam of the pleasure she felt at this praise.

"But," continued Harald, "you must confess that it does not require so very much skill to preserve the store-room and cellar well supplied in a country so rich in all the good things of life as our Norway—

Well-beloved land, with heaven-high mountains,
Fruit-bearing valleys, and fish-giving shores!"

"Fish also have we, thank God, in Sweden," replied Susanna, drily.

"Oh, but not to compare with our fish! Or would you seriously set your perch and carp against our mackerel, herrings, haddocks, flounders, and all our unparalleled quantities of fish?"

"All your Norwegian kind of fish I would give for one honest Swedish pike."

"A pike! Is there then in Sweden really nothing but pike?"

"In Sweden there are all kinds of fish that there are in Norway, and a great deal bigger and fatter."

"Yes, then they come from our coasts. We take what we want, and that which remains we let swim to Sweden, that down there they may have somewhat also. But I have forgotten that I myself am going a-fishing, and will catch little fishes, great fishes, a deal of fish. Adieu, Mamsel Susanna. I shall soon come back with fish."

"You had best stop with your Norwegian fishes," cried Susanna after him.

But Harald did not stop with the fishes. On the morrow we see 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 that," said Harald, "is because you saw here good corn for the first time."

Of the Norwegian weights, Susanna said, "I never know what I am about with your absurd, nasty Norwegian weights."

"They are heavier than the Swedish," replied Harald.

Whenever Susanna became right vehement and right angry, then—it is shocking to say it—Harald laughed with his whole heart, and at times a faint smile brightened also Mrs. Astrid's pale face, but it resembled the gleam of sunshine which breaks forth in a dark November sky, only to be immediately concealed behind clouds.

Susanna never thought in the least, on these occasions, of putting the bridle on the Barbra temper. She considered it as a holy duty to defend the fatherland in this manner.

But the spirit of contention did not always reign between Harald and Susanna. At intervals the spirit of peace also turned towards them, although as a timid dove, which is always ready soon to fly away hence. When Susanna spoke, as she often did, of that which lived in the inmost of her heart; of her love to her little sister, and the recollections of their being together; of her longings to see her again, and to be able to live for her as a mother for her child,—then listened Harald ever silently and attentively. No jeering smile nor word came to disturb these pure images in Susanna's soul. And how limningly did Susanna describe the little Hulda's beauty; the little white child, as soft as cotton-wool, the pious blue eyes, the white little teeth, which glanced out whenever she laughed like bright sunshine, which then lay spread over her whole countenance; and the golden locks which hung so beautifully over forehead and shoulders, the little pretty hands, and temper and heart lively, good, affectionate! Oh! she was in short an angel of God! The little chamber, which Susanna inhabited with her little Hulda, and which she herself had changed from an unused lumber-room into a pretty chamber, and whose walls she herself painted, she painted now from memory yet once more for Harald; and the bed of the little Hulda was surrounded with a light-blue muslin curtain, and how a sunbeam stole into the chamber in the morning, in order to shine on the pillow of the child, and to kiss her little curly head. How roguish was the little one when Susanna came in late at night to go to bed, and cast her first glance on the bed in which her darling lay. But she saw her not, for Hulda drew her little head under the coverlet to hide herself from her sister. Susanna then would pretend to seek for the little one; but she needed only to say with an anxious voice, "where—ah, where is my little Hulda?" in order to decoy forth the head of the little one, to see her arms stretched out, and to hear her say, "here I am, Sanna! here is thy little Hulda!" And she had then her little darling in her arms, and pressed her to her heart; then was Susanna happy, and forgot all the cares and the fatigues of the day.

At the remembrance of these hours Susanna's tears often flowed, and prevented her remarking the tearful glow which sometimes lit up Harald's eyes.

Harald, however, had also his relations; not, it is true, of so tender a nature, but yet interesting enough to lay claim to all Susanna's attention, and to give us occasion to commence a new chapter.