himself to be excited by tales of ghosts.  He has cast aside all supernatural apprehensions; and I see the coming of the time when even Saint Nicholas will not impose on children.  What have we gained by thus shaking off the network of smiling and serious fancies, which both enlivened and restrained our fancy?  Are we happier, stronger, or better?  Alas! for my own part, even were I to pass for a mind behind the times, I would confess that I regret those days of candid credulity in which each dark forest had its legend, every chapel its history.  One of the reasons why I love the Swedes, amid whom I found a peaceful home, is, that they have not yet sacrificed to the teachings of modern times their old poetry; and that in the majority of their woodland homes are a multitude of popular songs, of traditional faiths, of domestic customs, which recall the poetic days of the middle age.  Is not this true, Ebba?  You know something of this matter, for you participate in my predilections in relation to them; and more than once I have seen you listen anxiously to the stories of the old women of Aland.”

“Yes, father,” said Ebba; who had listened with eager sympathy to the long dissertation of the old man, while Eric and Ireneus listened modestly to all he had said.

“When you give me a lesson in Swedish,” said Ireneus, “will you be kind enough to add to it some of those histories, which, I assure you, interest me in no small degree?”

“If you wish it,” said Ebba, “I will.”  Whenever she spoke she seemed with difficulty to surmount her timidity.

“Well, my dear nephew,” said M. de Vermondans, with Eric on one side, Ebba on the other, and the practical knowledge of Alete, “it seems to me you can employ your time very profitably; for my own part I can only induct you into the mysteries of bear-hunting, and the chase of the stag and reindeer.  It is so rude that I shall not be able to keep up with you.  Among my people, however, I shall be able to find a guide, who finds game like a blood-hound, and follows it like a lion.”

“That will do wonderfully well, uncle; with so attractive an offer, I fear only that amid my amusements I shall forget my country and my regiment, and become faithless to my king.”

PART II.

Even if Ireneus had not willingly accepted the plan worked out for the Employment of his leisure in study, the rigorous climate of Sweden would, in some manner, have made it compulsory for him to do so.  To the cold and dry days, which, during the winter, enlightened and animated the people of the north, succeeded storms and hurricanes.  Tempests of snow floated in the air, covered the paths, and blocked up the doors of the houses.  A cloudy horizon and black sky seemed to close around every house, like a girdle of iron.  At a little distance not even a hill could be distinguished from a forest; all was, as it were, drowned and overwhelmed