The relation to the parents, even if the principle of unswerving and mute obedience was not wholly carried out, was ordinarily a reverential alienation. Neither side knew the inner life of the other. The temperament of the mother determined the everyday domestic comforts, the will of the father the external occurrences of life, from the trip to the ball to marriage. The daughter whose inclination corresponded with the will of the father considered herself fortunate. The one married against her will wept, but obeyed. As an almost fabulous occurrence it was related of one or another girl that she dared to say “No” before the marriage altar; cases were not unusual in which daughters received a box on the ear and were confined to their room until they accepted the bridegroom whom the father had chosen. Even if a mother, moved by the recollections of her own youth, attempted to support a daughter it rarely succeeded. For the power of the father rested quite as heavily upon the wife. But the worst however was to water myrtle year after year, without ever being able to cut it for a bridal wreath. Even she, who in her heart loved another, found it therefore often wisest to give her consent to an acceptable suitor. Only the one whose dowry was valued at a “ton of gold”—or who also was a celebrated beauty—could run the risk of declining a courtship; yes, she could permit herself to occasion it only to decline it. The more suitors she could recount, the prouder she was; such a beauty even embroidered around her bridal gown the monograms of all her earlier wooers. The unmarried remained behind in an environment where the idea prevailed that “woman’s politics are her toilettes, her republic is her household and literature belongs to her trinkets.” The talented daughter sewed the fine starched shirts in which her stupid brother went to the academy and sighed therewith: “Ah, if one only were a man.” When the income of the house was small, she increased it perhaps by embroidery, sold in deepest secrecy; for it was a disgrace for a girl of good family to work for money. For her rebellious thoughts she had perhaps a girl friend to whom she could pour out her heart—or a sister. But it often fared with sisters growing old together, just as it must fare with North-pole explorers wintering together, that those holding together of necessity finally loathe one another from the bottom of their hearts. And yet the sisters were most fortunate who could grow old and die in their childhood home and were not compelled to become old household fixtures in the home of relatives. Not infrequently this last fate was their portion because a father, a brother or a guardian out of personal, economical self-interest prevented their marriage, or a brother through debt or studies had defrauded them of their inheritance.