Page:An Epistle to Posterity.djvu/87

64 arose and, stretching out his hand to me, said, "Welbekomer." This custom went around the table. It seems it is a Danish word signifying "Welcome," "Your good health," "May your dinner agree with you."

I retired with the Danish ladies, all of whom spoke English, and I asked them how they spent their lives.

"Oh, we rise early, go out on horseback, come back, take a siesta, and dress for an eleven-o'clock breakfast, then lounge and read or do embroidery; then we lunch at two, take another siesta, drive at five, to get the ocean breeze, and dine at eight — a busy, uninteresting, sleepy life," said Miss Sigenbrod, a pale Danish beauty. But she sat down at the piano and played with great vigor. The Danes, men and women, are consummate musicians — a great resource in that sleepy island. The gentlemen finally got through with their cigars, wine-and-water, Peter Herring brandy, and cordials, and came in to join us. Our host, hospitable to the last, offered us ladies aerated waters, as we did not take the heavier drinks; but what would I not have given for one glass of ice-water! — a luxury I was not destined to taste in three months, for all the cooling which drinking-water gets in these remote islands is to hang it in a porous jar in the breeze, which I thought made it more tepid and more tasteless than before. But I could talk of my ride on a Spanish jennet, a pacing pony which is nearer to being a rocking-chair than any horseback motion I have ever tried. No carriages would be of service on that sugar-loaf which St. Thomas is, so we did all our sight-seeing from the ponies' backs.

"Well, how did you enjoy your dinner?" asked my husband, as we regained our own rooms in the hotel.

"Oh, immensely !" said I. "I should like to live here forever."