Early in the afternoon they reached Odde, beautiful Odde!—lying close to the edge of the fjord, embraced by the wooded hills, with pretty yachts and steamers at anchor in its bay, and the glacier looking coldly down from the great ice-sea above.
"We might almost be in England again," said Lady Munro, as they sat at lunch in the dining-room of the Hardanger.
"Yes, indeed," said Sir Douglas. "Civilised notions, half-a-dozen people in the place that one knows, two—actually two—shops, and dinners? Evelyn, you had better take a kariol and a tiger, and go shopping on the Boulevard!"
"I was just going to ask for your purse," said Evelyn calmly; "there are no end of things that I want to buy."
Finally, they betook themselves to the shops en famille, and a scene of reckless expenditure ensued. Sir Douglas heaped presents on "the girls," as he called Mona and Evelyn, and Lady Munro seemed to be in a fair way to buy up the whole shop.
"These old silver things are so pretty," she said childishly.
"And, at worst, they will do for bazaars," added Evelyn.
The saleswoman became more and more gracious. She had considerable experience in serving tourists who, with reminiscences of a previous summer in Switzerland or Italy, offered her "a pound for the lot," and her manner had acquired some asperity in consequence; but she quickly adapted herself to the people with whom she had to deal.
Mona watched her with a curious interest and fellow-feeling. "I ought to be picking up hints," she thought, with a smile. "I certainly might have a much worse teacher."
"Let me see. That's eleven and a half kroner," said a showy-looking man, taking a handful of gold and silver from his pocket. "I'll give you ten shillings."