"Yes, I think with you that there is an excess of romantic sentiment in his character; and that kind of thing is apt to become exaggerated into eccentricity or foolishness. I suppose he can't help it, living so much within himself, as it were."
"Possibly—that is—so!" Mr. Adiesen replied slowly.
"I hope," Fred resumed, and he smiled very pleasantly, "that this Viking fancy he has taken up may be of service to him in bringing him into contact with boys of his own age and rank. The young Mitchells are capital fellows, and you know better than most folk what sort of companions he is likely to find in Dr. Holtum's family."
"The Doctor is a man in a thousand. He did me a service I am not likely to forget on this side the grave. I don't see him as often as—might be under different circumstances. But I respect him. Yes, young man, I respect Dr. Holtum!" And the frown which had gathered on the old man's brow at mention of the Mitchells cleared up more rapidly than Fred had dared to hope for.
"I don't know how we should get along without Dr. Holtum—we young ones, I mean," he remarked. "He enters so much into all our fun, and then he is so very clever too, a first-rate scientist. They have a 'menagerie,' as large and interesting as your own, at Collaster. And the twins—they are a little older than your lovely little niece, but she would find them companionable, for she is older than her years, I think. I suppose it will be with her as it is with Yaspard in some respects?"
"Signy is quite contented without girls' society, and she can never become either eccentric or foolish," Mr. Adiesen said hurriedly; but all the same he suddenly had a vision of his pet growing up to be peculiar, and an old maid perhaps resembling Aunt Osla, or some other of the many spinster ladies whose insular life had doomed them to that fate.
"My sister Isobel and I," said Fred, "always feel that we are more fortunate than the greater number of Lairds' families in having so many companions in our island. It has been desperately good for me, I know, to have such clever chaps as Eric Mitchell and Svein Holtum for my chums."
"And your sister? Dr. Holtum's girls are younger?"
"Yes, and Isobel suffers in consequence. We all make a great fuss over Isobel, and she thinks a little too much of her own consequence. But still she has advantages—from the society of ladies, for instance—which your Signy cannot have."
The entrance of Signy herself put a stop to the conversation, but Fred was satisfied that he had sown good seed which would produce the right kind of fruit by-and-by. When he left Boden his heart was light within him. He took Mr. Adiesen's insolent note from his pocket and tore it to bits, scattering them on the sea, and saying within himself, "A soft answer turneth away wrath;" then to Yaspard he said, "Now, Sir Viking, for your letter. You want the answer, don't you?"