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4 further ceremony to come and make myself at home with them for the evening. "It isn't good for you, dear lieutenant, to sit thus alone here in the dark," she added; "will you not come in to us now at once? Old Mother Skau and my brother's little girls have come; they will perhaps, amuse you a little. You are so fond of the dear children."

I accepted the friendly invitation. As I entered the room, the fire from the large square stove, where the logs were burning lustily, threw a red, flickering light through the wide-open door over the room, which was very deep, and furnished in the old style with high-backed Russia leather chairs, and one of those settees which were intended for farthingales and straight up-and-down positions. The walls were adorned with oil paintings, portraits of stiff ladies with powdered coiffures, of bewigged Oldenborgians and other redoubtable persons in mail and armour or red coats.

"You must really excuse us, lieutenant, for not having lighted the candles yet," said Miss Cicely, the younger sister, who was generally called "Cilly," and who came towards me and dropped a courtesy, exactly like her sister's; "but the children do so like to tumble about here before the fire in the dusk of the evening, and Madam Skau does also enjoy a quiet little chat in the chimney corner."

"Oh, chat me here and chat me there, there is nothing you like yourself better than a little bit of gossip in the dusk of the evening, Cilly, and then we are to get the blame of it," answered the old asthmatic lady whom they called Mother Skau.

"Eh, good evening, sir," she said to me, as she drew herself up to make the best of her own inflated bulky appearance, "come and sit down here and tell me how it fares with you; but, by my troth, you are nothing but skin and bones!"

I had to tell her all about my illness, and in return I had to endure a very long and circumstantial account of her rheumatism and her asthmatical ailments, which fortunately was interrupted by the noisy arrival of the children from the kitchen, where they had paid a visit to old Stine, a fixture in the house.

"Oh, auntie, do you know what Stine says?" cried a little