When her passengers awoke the next morning the Dolphin was lying at her old anchorage near the beautiful Peristyle.

All had returned rested and refreshed, and were eager to go on shore in search of further entertainment and instruction.

The greater part of the day was spent in the Midway Plaisance.  They visited the Lapland family of King Bull, the most prominent character in that village, and found them all seated beside their odd-looking hut, which, like the others in the village, was made of skin, tent-like in shape, and banked up with moss.  The entrance was very small, the door made of a piece of wood.  A fire was kept burning in the centre of the house, in the ground.  There was no chimney; some of the smoke escaped through a little hole in the roof, if the wind was right.  But if the wind comes from the wrong direction the smoke stays in the house, and the people enjoy it.  It does not, however, improve their complexions, which are said to be, in their native state, not unlike the color of a well-cured ham.

King Bull they found had the largest house, and a very large family.

The Laplanders marry young, and it is not unusual for a grandfather to be under twenty-five years of age.  King Bull was one hundred and twelve years old and had great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren, and every day he played for a little while with the youngest of those.

Our friends learned that he had with him a son, Bals Bull, ninety years old, that he had a son aged seventy-three, he had a daughter aged fifty-nine, she a son aged forty-one, who had a son aged twenty-nine, who had a daughter aged fourteen, and she a daughter two years old.

“Dear me!” exclaimed Rosie, on hearing this, “how old it makes a body feel!  Why, just think! the mother of that two-year-old child is a year younger than you, Grace Raymond; and you don’t consider yourself much more than a child yet, do you?”

“No, indeed! and don’t want to be anything but my father’s own little girl,” returned Grace, giving him a loving look that said more than her words.

“Can you tell us if this looks like the real Lapland village, Harold!” asked Walter.

“I am told it does,” replied his brother; “that it is as nearly as possible a reproduction of one, though of course it is not very large, there being but twenty-four Laplanders here.”

“What do they eat, papa?” asked little Elsie.

“Fish and reindeer meat, and cheese made of the milk.  The reindeer is their most valuable possession:  its skin is used for clothing, the fur is woven into cloth, they drink the milk, and use the bones in the making of their sledges.  They live entirely on such food during their winters, which are nine months long.”

“And their summer only three months,” said Evelyn, “I shouldn’t like that.”

“No, nor should I,” said Herbert.  “I think it must be by far the most enjoyable part of the year, for it is usually spent at the seashore.”