"It has its peculiar beauty, Frøken Helga," replied Hardy.
"I would rather live here than any place I know," said Helga. "The peace and calm of the beech woods, and the fret of the wind waves on the shore of the lake, suggest thoughts that are unspeakable to me."
Hardy started. She had spoken in a simple manner, but he felt that she experienced all she uttered. He now understood Pastor Lindal's words that Rosendal was Helga's enthusiasm. Then there was an appreciation of nature and her mysteries that Hardy had thought impossible out of English refinement and its influence.
"Can we go through the house?" said Hardy, as if with a sudden determination. "I wish to see it."
"The Forvalter or bailiff lives in the house, and if he is not at home his wife is, or their servant," replied Helga.
The house had reception-rooms after the older Danish fashion, and were such as could be made comfortable, even to an English tenant. John Hardy asked the bailiff's wife if she could point out the boundary of the property; and this was done from the rising ground behind the house. A visit to the valley of roses was made, and a stroll through the beech woods. Karl and Axel had ran to the shores of the lake, and had hunted along its banks to find wild ducks' eggs, happily without success.
On the way back to Pastor Lindal's parsonage, John Hardy attempted a conversation with Frøken Helga; but it failed utterly. She talked with her brothers and walked with them. Hardy saw he was avoided. He had seen the same conduct in young girls in France, and attributed it to the same reason, and said nothing more.
The Pastor, when his pipe had been, as usual, filled by Helga after dinner, and at the first vigorous puffs, addressed Hardy.
"Let me hear about Rosendal, Herr Hardy. I can listen, but when Helga has filled my pipe, can make any allowance then, for anybody's prejudices, even an Englishman's."
"Rosendal is a place with an accidental, peculiar beauty," said Hardy. "The configuration of the land is adapted to form a shelter to the beech trees, while the little lake is just in the right place to produce a pretty effect. The landscape is, as you say, a Jutland landscape; the grass in the meadows is coarse, and the arable land sandy."