“I am so glad my brother found you,” she exclaimed. “You would have been wet through had you walked on to Bergen. Swanhild, run and fetch a duster; oh, you have brought one already, that’s a good child. Now let me wipe your dress,” she added, turning to Cecil.
“Where has every one disappeared to?” asked Frithiof.
“Father has walked on to Holdt’s Hotel with the Morgans,” said Swanhild. “They would not wait, though we tried to persuade them to. Father is going to talk over their route with them.”
Cecil saw a momentary look of annoyance on his face; but the next minute he was talking as pleasantly as possible to Roy, and before long the question of routes was being discussed, and as fast as Frithiof suggested one place, Sigrid and Swanhild mentioned others which must on no account be missed.
“And you can really only spare a month for it all?” asked Sigrid. “Then I should give up going to Christiania or Trondhjem if I were you. They will not interest you half as much as this southwest coast.”
“But, Sigrid, it is impossible to leave out Kongswold and Dombaas. For you are a botanist, are you not?” said Frithiof, turning to the Englishman, “and those places are perfection for flowers.”
“Yes? Then you must certainly go there,” said Sigrid. “Kongswold is a dear little place up on the Dovrefjeld. Yet if you were not botanists I should say you ought to see instead either the Vöringsfos or the Skjaeggedalsfos, they are our two finest waterfalls.”
“The Skedaddle-fos, as the Americans call it,” put in Frithiof.
“You have a great many American tourists, I suppose,” said Roy.
“Oh, yes, a great many, and we like them very well, though not as we like the English. To the English we feel very much akin.”