"Is it better than other countries you have seen?" asked the girl with some interest.
"Much better!" returned Sir Philip fervently. "In fact, there is no place like it in my opinion." He paused at the sound of her pretty laughter.
"You are--what is it?--ecstatic!" she said mirthfully. "Tell me, have you been to the south of France and the Pyrenees?"
"Of course I have," he replied. "I have been all over the Continent,--travelled about it till I'm tired of it. Do you like the south of France better than Norway?"
"No,--not so very much better," she said dubiously. "And yet a little. It is so warm and bright there, and the people are gay. Here they are stern and sullen. My father loves to sail the seas, and when I first went to school at Arles, he took me a long and beautiful voyage. We went from Christiansund to Holland, and saw all those pretty Dutch cities with their canals and quaint bridges. Then we went through the English Channel to Brest,--then by the Bay of Biscay to Bayonne. Bayonne seemed to me very lovely, but we left it soon, and travelled a long way by land, seeing all sorts of wonderful things, till we came to Arles. And though it is such a long route, and not one for many persons to take, I have travelled to Arles and back twice that way, so all there is familiar to me,--and in some things I do think it better than Norway."
"What induced your father to send you so far away from him?" asked Philip rather curiously.
The girl's eyes softened tenderly. "Ah, that is easy to understand!" she said. "My mother came from Arles."
"She was French, then?" he exclaimed with some surprise.
"No," she answered gravely. "She was Norwegian, because her father and mother both were of this land. She was what they call 'born sadly.' You must not ask me any more about her, please!"
Errington apologized at once with some embarrassment, and a deeper color than usual on his face. She looked up at him quite frankly.
"It is possible I will tell you her history some day," she said, "when we shall know each other better. I do like to talk to you very much! I suppose there are many Englishmen like you?"
Philip laughed. "I don't think I am at all exceptional! why do you ask?"