watching the fine carriages as they dashed past
him; he saw the handsome women in brilliant
costumes laughing and chatting gayly; the
apathetic policemen promenading in stoic dignity
up and down upon the smooth pavements; the
jauntily attired nurses, whom in his Norse
innocence he took for mothers or aunts of the chil-
dren, wheeling baby-carriages which to Norse
eyes seemed miracles of dainty ingenuity, under
the shady crowns of the elm-trees. He did not
know how long he had been sitting there, when
a little bright-eyed girl with light kid gloves, a
small blue parasol and a blue polonaise, quite a
lady of fashion en miniature, stopped in front
of him and stared at him in shy wonder. He
had always been fond of children, and often rejoiced
in their affectionate ways and confidential
prattle, and now it suddenly touched him
with a warm sense of human fellowship to have
this little daintily befrilled and crisply starched
beauty single him out for notice among the
hundreds who reclined in the arbors, or sauntered
to and fro under the great trees.


[1] "I am a Dane. I speak Danish."



"What is your name, my little girl?" he