Dinner was a study and an art. They had some science in it. There was an ante-prandium and the prandium, and the dessert and the post-prandium, and more post that I did not see; but what I did may be set down to give you an idea of the Swedes at dinner. First, every gentleman steps to a side table and takes a glass of schnapps, or gin, or other liquor that he prefers, and appetizes himself by eating of salt fish, dried tongue, cold meats, bread and cheese, making a very satisfactory snack or lunch, which would serve most of men for a fair dinner. The second course is soup, and one who is recently from Paris needs a little education to make it pleasant to his taste. Then follow salmon, chicken, roast beef, pudding, ice cream, jellies; and with these dishes, which are served one after another, and all to be eaten, are the usual trimmings of bread and butter, with vegetables to any extent. When this bill of fare—a dinner to order, and exquisitely cooked and served in good style—is disposed of, you are expected to indulge in the national punch, an oily, fiery, pungent liquor, that should not be taken without medical advice; yet it may be that it assists digestion after the organs have been overladen with such a dinner as I have just eaten and described. Now, it is not unlikely that such dinners are very largely enjoyed by the people, for all that I have mentioned may be had for seventy-five cents! And as you pay for just what you order, and no more, it is possible to make a sufficient dinner for half the money, and thousands do. We protracted our stay till the evening (not the dark) came on, and rode to the charming rural retreat for the royal household, and had the pleasure of gratifying our democratic eyes by seeing the ladies of the family taking their tea out of doors, so much in the same way that other people take theirs, we should not have suspected them of being any thing more than common, had we not been told of it, and actually had seen the august servant, with a white wig and pompous strut, bringing the “tea things” out to the little table in the garden. So many other little family circles did we see enjoying themselves in the same way, that we could readily see it was a national habit, and quite in harmony with those domestic pictures which Frederika Bremer has made us so familiar with in her letters about Swedish homes. [Illustration: COSTUMES OF SWEDEN.] One thing impressed me daily in these north countries of Europe,—the general content and comfort of the people. The climate has not helped them to this, for it is far less favorable to general enjoyment than that of the south. But there is an amount of industry, intelligence, and morality, that make a contrast easily marked between the people of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, and the inhabitants of Spain and Italy. I find no such masses of squalid vice and misery here, as one may easily see in Naples or Seville.