"And Karen studies with her private tutors, here, at home?"
"Yes, Thorvald, besides learning to be a good little housekeeper, as well. But you must be both hungry and tired. It is nearly twelve o'clock. Come, Karen, help me spread the table with something good for Frokost,[4] for Uncle Thor."
A cloth of snowy damask was quickly spread with various viands and meats; tongue, salad, salmon, anchovies, plates of butter, with trays containing French (white) bread, and other trays full of thin slices of rye bread, which is such a favorite with all Danes. Fru Ingemann then placed a bottle of beer beside Hr. Svensen's plate, and brought in the steaming hot tea, which she herself poured into the delicate cups of that wonderful crystalline ware, the famous Royal Copenhagen porcelain—a set doubly cherished by her as an heirloom in her family for many generations.
Karen, who could herself make delicious tea, loved to gaze at the fascinatingly delicate decoration of the cups, which looked, as she said, "like frost on the window-pane;" but she never was allowed to touch this precious set of old Royal Copenhagen, of which not one piece had yet been broken.
"And smörrebröd, brother?" politely urged Fru Ingemann, for no good Danish housewife would ever think of inviting any one to breakfast without having smörrebröd on the table.
"Thanks, sister Else," replied the hungry artist, who immediately set about thickly spreading butter—famous Danish butter—over a slice of rye bread, as did also Karen and her mother, after which each proceeded to select the particular kind of fish or meat preferred, and, arranging it upon the slice of buttered bread, ate it much as we would a sandwich. Uncle Thor made an especially delicious one for Karen, who had already become a great favorite with him.
Frokost over, Fru Ingemann arose, and, bowing slightly to her brother, said: "Velbekomme!"[5] And Hr. Svensen did the same.
"Tak for Mad, Moder,"[6] said Karen courtesying first to her mother and then to her Uncle Thor, and kissing them both—a beautiful old Danish custom.
Uncle Thor was a great lover of flowers. To-day there were beautiful flowers on the table, in the windows, everywhere! In fact, the whole Ingemann apartment seemed overwhelmed with the loveliness of them. Besides the vases, there were little flower-pots galore, all decked in brightly-colored paper, some containing blooming plants, others, little growing trees.
"Ah, Karen, has there been a birthday here?" asked Uncle Thor, in mock surprise. "Run out in the hall and see what came all the way from Naples, Italy, to Frederiksberg-Alle, in Copenhagen, for a good little girl with long pigtails."