me, whom I had met the evening before. " We
always, at such parties, stand up to dinner."
My answer was cut short by our being ushered
into the dining-room.

As I wished to do at Rome as they did at
Rome, I first turned to a little side-table,
on which were arranged sardines, anchovies,
"Throndhjem aquavit," and other appetite-
ticklers. I won't describe the dinner; suffice it to
say, it was most excellent. But I would earnestly
recommend any one going to Christiania, to
practise dining standing up before leaving home;
for it requires an uncommon knack to be able to
manage it properly. Try; take a plate with
a bit of chicken, a slice of ham, some peas,
and potatoes on it, for instance. Hold this in
your left hand—for all the chairs and side-
tables are monopolised by the elderly people—
and cut up and eat with your right. In the
mean time, keep constantly drinking wine with
imaginary guests, and get your sisters to push
gently up against you from all sides. And
withal you should not omit to pay some attention
to the study of attitudes. Assume the
best posture for preserving your "gravity in
a state of stability," while at the same time
seek to avoid a straddle, as if you were on the
deck of a rolling steamer, otherwise you may
be animadverted on by the company. You
must not feel annoyed if, just as you have
succeeded in cutting up the chicken and ham
in nice little bits, and have relinquished the
knife for the fork, a jolt from behind disturbs
the direction a mouthful is taking, and sends
it outside your shirt-front instead of inside.
Neither must you be irritated at feeling that
some one is pouring a plateful of gravy down
your back. I upset a glass of wine over a
young gentleman's legs (an elderly man of
stout basis, who bumped against me, was the
cause), and I am ashamed to say that I looked
hard in another direction, as if I knew nothing
at all about the matter. Another piece of advice
I would venture to suggest—especially if you
dislike using dirty forks—is, that you keep a
tight hold of your own. Forks are always at a
premium, and if you put yours down for one
moment, you'll never see it again. I cannot
suggest the modest stranger's doing anything
better with his wine-glass than putting it in his
pocket when not in immediate use; for I am
convinced that not one of the ladies or gentlemen
present drank out of the same glass twice.

After dinner, which was over about six,
the gentlemen strolled out into the grounds to
smoke. The ladies don't at all object to the
smell of the fragrant weed, and nearly all the
clergy indulge in it. You can judge for
yourself, when I inform you that in 1855, when
the population consisted of one million four
hundred and ninety thousand and forty-seven
souls—I like exactitude—the imports of tobacco
amounted to about three millions three hundred
thousand pounds; which gives an allowance of
two pounds and a quarter to each soul, not
deducting women or children. One gentleman to
whom I was introduced informed me that he
always had a smoke the last thing at night, after
he had got into bed; and, from some incidental
remarks he made, I discovered that he was a
married man, and occupied the same apartment as
his wife. Cigars, coffee, and its attendant
Curaçoa, having been duly appreciated, we returned
to the house, and danced till twelve o'clock. And
though the party had thus lasted eight hours, it
had been throughout an uncommonly pleasant
one, and the time had passed very quickly.

"As you have now seen what we can do in the
way of balls and dinner-parties," said my friend,
as we strolled home in the soft twilight (for it was
so light, that I could easily have read the smallest
print), " you shall see us as we are every day. I
will take you to a friend's house to-morrow, and
will not tell him anything about it beforehand."

If the dinner-party the day before had been
costly and profuse, the fare to-day was homely,
and rather sparing. The dinner consisted of
fish-soup—a dish my pen is quite unable to
describe, but which I should pronounce very
nasty; roast chickens stuffed with parsley, about
the size of partridges; and Multer-berries and
cream. As a rule, Norwegian families do not
eat meat more than three or four times a week;
and a pudding—at least what an Englishman
calls a pudding—is unknown.

Dinner being finished, as if at a preconcerted
signal, everybody arose and pushed (not lifted)
his chair back against the wall, thus producing
an immense deal of unnecessary noise on the
uncarpeted floor. And then everybody shook
hands with the host, and with everybody else,
and said, " Tak for Mad."

I was amused by an anecdote an English lady
who had married a Norwegian told me. It
seems they resolved upon living as much as
possible in the English style, and therefore had
meat and pudding every day. The servant had
the same fare. But she could not eat it; she
pined after her milk-soup, salt herrings, and
potatoes; and actually lodged a complaint with the
police against her master, because he would give
her meat and pudding instead.

I should like to take Jeames, or John Thomas,
or Betty the cook, over to Norway, and treat
them to servants' fare there. A month or two
of it would do them all a world of good! How
they would appreciate the cold leg of mutton
when they got back; and how heartily table-ale
at tenpence a gallon would be relished after
nothing but coffee and cold water!

THE STORY OF THE STONE-EYES.

CHAPTER I.

THE romance of the railway has seldom
furnished a more extraordinary narrative than that
which I now compile from the hasty jottings of
my note-book, in June, eighteen hundred and
fifty-eight.

I had made a random dash at a distant point
by a certain cross-country railway, whose
eccentric sinuosities, surpassing my very worst
anticipations, finally deposited me on a deserted
platform—Something's Den—then, withdrawing