politeness and a certain ceremony. But of the affectation of which
_The Fatherland_ accused him, there was not a trace. What
profoundly impressed me was the Danish the old gentleman spoke, the most
perfect Danish. He told of his travels in India--once upon a time he had
been Governor of Trankebar--and you saw before you the banks of the
Ganges and the white troops of women, streaming down to bathe in the
river, as their religion prescribed.

I never forgot the words with which Bluhme rose to go: "May I borrow the
English blue-books for a few days? There might be something or other
that the newspapers have not thought fit to tell us." I started at the
words. It dawned upon me for the first time, though merely as a remote
possibility, that the Press might purposely and with intent to mislead
keep silence about facts that had a claim upon the attention of the
public.


IX.

Young David had once asked me to read Ovid's Elegiacs with him, and this
was the beginning of our closer acquaintance. In town, in the Winter, we
two younger ones were only rarely with the rest of the family, but in
Summer it was different. The Minister had built a house at Rungsted, on
a piece of land belonging to his brother, who was a farmer and the owner
of Rungstedgaard, Rungstedlund and Folehavegaard, a shrewd and practical
man. To this villa, which was in a beautiful situation, overlooking the
sea, I was often invited by my friend to spend a few days in the Summer,
sometimes even a month at a time. At first, of course, I was nothing to
the rest of the family; they received me for the son's sake; but by
degrees I won a footing with them, too. The handsome, clever and