and dear Edith Cole--and two spacious pine bedrooms opening on to a gallery, and this noble new world all round about. It is like Switzerland, but softer and bigger and not over-run. The snow lies on the hills, there are seven waterfalls tumbling down the rocks. The flowers and leaves and mosses are quite indescribable, Edith Cole has books of botany and knows them all. She has an old attendant fisherman who goes about with her. She calls him Ole, and I asked if this was his family name. It is his Christian name, Ole, and his son is called Oleson, and so they go on, Billy would be Richmondson and his son would be Billyson, and so on for ever and ever.
Good-bye, good-bye.
[ 1907.]
We landed last night, after a delicious progress up the Fjörd with a huge approving red moon looking at us over the tops of the rocky battlements. We made friends with a little old German music master, who had hurt his foot, and we gave him a lift in the carriage which we had telephoned for. Our little German professor kissed both our hands at parting, and said that Ritchie was a "berühmter" name. We didn't go into it. (Did I tell you of the American young lady who burst into tears when I told her my father's name?)
It was 12 o'clock at night when we got here and the sky was a lovely faint rose colour, and the dawn was coming in yellow from that horrible place we had fled from, where we found the King of Siam and 400 tourists, and cross, exhausted, Norwegian maids and exasperated porters, and nothing to eat. We got away in a little carriage from this nightmare of a place, and my heart sank into my boots as we came
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