Since then his uncle, who was his guardian and
nearest relative, had taken him into his family,
had instructed him with his own daughters, and
finally sent him to the University, leaving the little
fortune which he had inherited to accumulate
for future use. Arnfinn had a painfully distinct
recollection of his early hardships in trying to
acquire that soft pronunciation of the r which is
peculiar to the western fjord districts of Norway,
and which he admired so much in his
cousins; for the merry-eyed Inga, who was less
scrupulous by a good deal than her older sister,
Augusta, had from the beginning persisted in
interpreting their relation of cousinship as an
unbounded privilege on her part to ridicule him
for his personal peculiarities, and especially for
his harsh r and his broad eastern accent. Her
ridicule was always very good-natured, to be
sure, but therefore no less annoying.
But--such is the perverseness of human nature--
in spite of a series of apparent rebuffs,
interrupted now and then by fits of violent
attachment, Arnfinn had early selected this dimpled
and yellow-haired young girl, with her piquant
little nose, for his favorite cousin. It was the
prospect of seeing her which, above all else,
had lent, in anticipation, an altogether new
radiance to the day when he should present him-
self in his home with the long-tasseled student
cap on his head, the unnecessary "pinchers" on
his nose, and with the other traditional
paraphernalia of the Norwegian student.
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