“Ah!” cried Eric, springing up, and glancing at Ireneus with an expression of radiant joy, “how happy I am at what you say!  I was afraid.  I will confess, that I might find in you one of those careless men of the world, as we hear most of the Parisians are.  I see, however, you are a worthy nephew of him I shall soon call uncle.”

“Gentlemen,” said Alete, who from the door had, with a pleasant smile on her face, heard this amicable exchange of sentiments, “will you be pleased to come to dinner?”

“Have they any caviar?” asked M. de Vermondans.

“Certainly, and as good as possible.”

“Then we can give this Parisian a complete specimen of the gastronomical refinements of our out-kitchen.”

“You must know, Ireneus,” said he, as he led his nephew to a little table placed in the corner of the dining-room, “that we do not commerce our meal as the rest of the world does.  Our good ancestors certainly discovered, that the walls of the stomach being contracted by cold, needed to be refreshed by something spirituous, and from time to time this estimable precaution has been perpetuated in the country.  We will therefore first take a glass of this brandy, and then a cake of this caviar, a few anchovies, and a slice or two of ham, after which we will really sit at the festal board, where the soup, to which you assign the first rank, appears only as a secondary entree, after many culinary preparations.”

This was done to the great amusement of Ireneus, who really would have taken for the dinner itself the prelude to it.

When they had sat down, Alete undertook to put him through a course of national gastronomy.

“What do you think,” asked she, “of the fish to which my father has just helped you?”

“They are very good,” replied Ireneus, “and resemble smelts.”

“What do you mean by smelts?  They are doubtless some tasteless product of your warm rivers.  Know, Monsieur, that these are stroemlings, the finest and most delicate fish in the icy waters of the north.  This other fish, which glows like a piece of gold in its porcelain plate, you would find it difficult to call by the correct name.  It is a salmon, caught by a skillful hand, and smoked with particular care.  Near you is the tongue of a reindeer, prepared by a Laplander, unrivaled in this useful art.  This bird, which yet looks fixedly at you with open eyes, though it died two days ago, you might fancy a barn-door fowl, fattened up by the cook.  Not so:  it is the briar-cock, the honor of our forests.  The two fowls in that dish are not a pair of vulgar pullets, but succulent grouse.  I will not mention that haunch of sanglier, which, however, is worthy of a royal table; nor of those vegetables, which strangers say are nowhere as finely flavored as they are in our loved Sweden; nor of those berries, gathered last fall on the sides of our hills.  Pay some attention, however, to that bread which you break so carelesely with your fingers.  It is not coarse and heavy, like that of other countries.  It is our kneach-brad, delicate and light as a sheet of paper, and white as the purest flour.”