The brow of the Prime Minister of Sweden grew very black, and his face had something of the benign expression of the growling pug on his daughter's knee.
"Who is that person, Christina?"
But Christina looked at her father with an alarmed glance, which she shortly after converted into a smile, and went on in her pleasing occupation of smoothing the raven down of her favourite, but did not say a word.
The father, who seemed to be no great judge of pantomime, repeated his question.
"Who is that person, Christina?"
Christina disdained hypocrisy, and, moreover, was immensely spoiled.
"Who should it be, but your gallant nephew, Adolphus Hesse, dear father?"
"You haven't had the impudence, I hope, to engage yourself to that boy?"
"Boy—why he is twenty-one! He is my oldest friend—we learned all our lessons together. I can't recollect the time we were not engaged, it is so long since we loved each other!"
"Nonsense! You were brought up together by his mother; it is nothing but sisterly affection."