Poverty is always relative. It means possessing less than we have been accustomed to. Having been both rich and poor, I am perhaps an impartial critic. The domestic experiences of those married years were, later, as so much garnered grain to the writer. My luxurious, happy home was—without my knowledge—affording me training which afterwards proved invaluable in my writing. The responsibilities of motherhood gave me insight into the workings and imaginations of children’s minds. The household wisdom learnt as mistress of a fairly large establishment has been of infinite use in writing on practical subjects of domestic interest—especially those of interest to women. Men must really cease to think women find fun in ordering cabbages. As every book we read leaves some sort of an impression, so every scene or incident we live leaves its mark. CHAPTER IV “A WINTER JAUNT TO NORWAY” On a terribly cold day in January, 1893, my father received a wire from Christiania, saying that my brother was dangerously ill there. After he took his degree, Vaughan had worked with Pasteur in Paris for some time at the table next Professor Sophus Torop. They thus became friends, and when my brother wished to complete some original scientific work of his own, Professor Torop kindly offered him space in his huge laboratories at Christiania if he cared to use them. Thither he went. A cut on his hand ended in serious blood-poisoning, and a terrifying telegram suggesting amputation of the right arm was the first intimation we had of the illness. It was afternoon. Someone must go to Norway. Norway in winter! Yes, Norway covered with snow and ice: its rivers, fjords, waterfalls, and lakes all frozen: its mountains cloaked with purest snow: its people swathed in fur. My father was too tied by his profession to leave. My mother was not equal to so perilous a journey. My husband was away in Scotland on business, so I undertook the expedition. It was considered too wild an undertaking for me, a young woman, to do quite alone, so my people insisted that my sister, then a little girl, should accompany me. Three hours later we started, not in the least knowing how we were ever going to get to Christiania, as the winter was particularly severe, and for months the great naval station at Kiel had been completely ice-bound. We had the most exciting time crossing from Kiel to Korsör in the first boat that had ventured through the ice for twelve weeks, and so bad did the passage finally become that we were forced to get out and walk. Crossing an ice-floe was somewhat interesting and certainly exciting, and walking on one’s feet from Denmark to Sweden was a queer experience.