daughters worked year in year out without wages, in case they did not receive meagrely doled out pin-money which only through great ingenuity sufficed for their toilette. All year long there were christenings and birthday celebrations; in summer games were played, where it was possible riding parties arranged, in winter sleighing parties were organised. Other physical exercise was considered superfluous. The young girls were averse to going to a neighbouring estate if it lay a mile away; and during the week to take a long walk for pleasure or sit down with a book, which had been borrowed, would be considered simply as idling away one’s time. In summer a cold bath was permissible—a warm bath was used only in cases of sickness—but swimming was considered so unwomanly, that whoever had learned it must keep it secret. Rowing, tobogganing and skating were, even if permitted in the country, yet half in discredit as “masculine.” When grandfather related an heroic deed of some ancestress whose proud countenance shone out among the family portraits, then the daughter of such a family must have asked herself why this deed was lauded while everything “manly” was forbidden her. The days and years went by at the embroidery frame or netting needles, amid continuous chatter about the family and neighbours, amid eternal friction and in disputing back and forth over mere trifles. The confined nervous force sought an outlet, and in an existence where each one—according to the first paragraph of family rights—interfered in the greatest as in the smallest concerns of all the others, there was always plenty of material about which to become irritated and excited. In the country, life was, however, fuller and fresher than in the city where the young girl had less to do and never dared go out alone; yes, where a walk was considered so superfluous, that the mother of the great Swedish feminist Fredrika Bremer advised her daughters to jump up and down behind a chair when they insisted that they needed exercise! * * * * *