"In that little hut there?"

"Yes. That's the place--Troen they call it."

"Why, that wall there bulges so, I should think the whole affair would
collapse soon."

Peer tried to laugh at this, but felt something like a lump in his
throat. It hurt to hear fine folks talk like that of father and mother's
little house.

There was a great flurry when the strange gentleman appeared in the
doorway. The old wife was kneading away at the dough for a cake, the
front of her all white with flour; the old man sat with his spectacles
on, patching a shoe, and the two girls sprang up from their spinning
wheels. "Well, here I am. My name's Holm," said the traveller, looking
round and smiling. "Mercy on us! the Captain his own self," murmured the
old woman, wiping her hands on her skirt.

He was an affable gentleman, and soon set them all at their ease. He sat
down in the seat of honour, drumming with his fingers on the table, and
talking easily as if quite at home. One of the girls had been in service
for a while in a Consul's family in the town, and knew the ways of
gentlefolk, and she fetched a bowl of milk and offered it with a curtsy
and a: "Will the Captain please to take some milk?" "Thanks, thanks,"
said the visitor. "And what is your name, my dear? Come, there's nothing
to blush about. Nicoline? First-rate! And you? Lusiana? That's right."
He looked at the red-rimmed basin, and, taking it up, all but emptied it
at a draught, then, wiping his beard, took breath. "Phu!--that was good.
Well, so here I am." And he looked around the room and at each of them