"He had said nothing to me; he did not wish to make me nervous before the time, he said. Fürst came straight from Sofiero--fancy, he is perhaps to be made orderly officer to the prince who is a sailor--his Royal Highness Prince Oscar, that is to say. Fürst told us at what time the train would leave the next day. Good heavens! actually the next day. We were expected, then! I was not allowed to make any toilette, I was to appear just in my travelling dress, as papa was to do as well. That naughty Lieutenant Fürst--you know he is related to us--he calls me cousin, though I am not one. He said I was pretty enough as I was. Do you know him? "It was now a question of getting some sleep after the journey--one does not look well when one has not slept. I have never struggled so hard to go to sleep before. I was terribly startled, you see. I thought about the stupidest things in the world. Do you remember chief custom-house officer Jacobsen's nose? I lay and stared at his nose, till I really fell asleep thinking of it and of the town bailiff; and I can tell you I was so tired, that when I was once asleep, I slept like a top. I was, thank goodness, none the worse when I got up. But it was awful, really awful later on. You have never been in such circumstances, so perhaps it may seem odd to you that the more I thought of the important moment, and that I had no lady to refer to (men can never tell one anything, and so they laugh), the more terrified I became. It was rather a cold morning, and one thing with the other, the cold and the fright--Fürst called it cannon fever--I was most miserably uncomfortable. It was dreadfully silly; at last I could not altogether conceal it. You understand. But I consoled myself with the thought that I was not the first girl to whom this had happened, when she was to be presented at Court. I was really quite ill at last, and therefore have hardly any impression of the journey, or what we talked about. For all that, I got into a dispute. Fürst said that all the monarchies were trying to gather the wealthy classes about themselves against the lower classes. That seems to me to be too bad. Is the monarchy meant to protect itself? I thought it was to protect the lower classes, and I said so too. Papa began to tease me about the Society and school, and Karen Lote's history lessons; you can hear him, can't you? Fürst asked who was to protect the wealthy classes in that case? They must protect themselves, I should suppose. At all events, it is wicked of them to betray the lower classes, is it not?