CHAPTER XI.


The house in the town was undergoing repairs this year, which kept the
family out in the country until rather late in the autumn. But the
glorious September days prolonged the summer, and they could still sit
out on the steps in the evening and enjoy the beauty and the sentiment
of the season, and the rich variety of the autumn tints reflected on the
still waters of the Sound.

The members of Carl's commission, with their president, were invited out
there one day, and it was made a great occasion, all the resources of
the house being brought into requisition to do them honour.

Carl, although the youngest member of the Commission, and really only
included in it to make up the required number, had been fortunate enough
to distinguish himself upon it; and his sisters even thought that there
might be a question of an order for him--that distinction so coveted in
Norway--if they made love sufficiently to the president. Carl professed
to be quite superior to a mere external decoration of the kind, though
longing for it in his heart; and Marie Forstberg, whom he had not taken
into his confidence in the matter, was highly indignant with his sisters
for supposing that it should depend upon the president, and not upon
Carl's own merit, whether he received it or not. Mina, however, had
declared, with a great air of knowledge of the world, that people
couldn't trust to merit alone, and that, besides (and here she had laid