up nose, and a pair of small, vividly black eyes, the sole members exposed to sight or to frost.

I was dressed for a covered sledge, and found this was an open one. No matter; I preferred braving the keen air to returning up those dark, ice-cold stone stairs for more muffling. We got in; pulled the fur apron over us; I said, "Go on," in English, and my companion said, "Go on," ," in Swedish, and the words were quite the same; the bells jingled, and we were off. The white ground, the clear calm air, the sparkling lights, were accessories to enjoyment. The sledgebells sounded softly musical in the stilly air. "They are quite lulling," I said, "they would incline one to sleep on a journey."

"Yes," said the Swede; "I can assure you, Madame, that our ladies in the country are often lulled to sleep by them when they are coming home at night, perhaps twenty or thirty milesthat is, of your miles-from the balls. But that is dangerous, oh, very dangerous indeed, to sleep at night in an open sledge; and then when they awake, they may also find themselves in the ditch."

"And do your ladies travel at night in open sledges ?"

"That they must often do if they go to country balls; but they muffle themselves well up."

We were soon ascending the heights of Södor, or Södormaln, the south suburb of Stockholm. It was so beautiful! The lights from the manywindowed and unevenly-situated houses, the effects of which are an unceasing pleasure to me from my windows, were now sparkling out on the snow around, before, behind us; the palace was all lighted up; the old Queen Dowager, I believe, entertained her royal and most amiable son that day. We passed by the water, or what had been the water, where now the frost-bound ships and boats stood motionless and silent: the streets were as quiet as in the dead of night, yet it was scarcely six o'clock; only the half-frozen sentinels, and a strangely isolated-looking passenger, were to be seen. We got beyond the town. I beheld, for the first time in Sweden, a winter country scene by night. My companion, assuring me that it did not always look so dreary, thought me very polite to him or to his country, while all the time the admiration and pleasure expressed were real and heartfelt.

The scenery was new and picturesque to my eyes. The snow just then lay deep, the ground

was abruptly broken into hills and hollows, the moon had not risen, yet all was distinctly visible in the clear twilight, and the large stars spangled the lofty sky. Our tinkling bells warned a few walkers of our otherwise noiseless approach; but no decent woman in Sweden goes without a lantern, and the only one we met had hers in a curious fashion. I thought it was a moving lamppost at a distance; but I found she had her lantern fastened like a great brooch to her person, in order that her hands should not be benumbed by holding it. At last we left the public road, and ascended a hilly avenue to a very retired old house, which had once been a favourite villa of that famous, and perhaps still little understood personage, Queen Christina. The Swedes, who certainly relish a bit of scandal as much as any other of their national dishes, tell all sorts of stories about the origin of this retreat, which was then further removed from what was the fashionable side of Stockholm: but if this now common-place and dilapidated old house was really the scene of such adventures as they hint at, it is no wonder that the ghost of poor Queen Christina returns to visit, by the glimpses of the moon, the theatre of earthly and perhaps repented folly.

And when we got into this old house, it ap

peared as strange a place for a modern wedding, as for old-fashioned royal love. The hall was dark as well as ancient; and the doubting, half-frightened look of the man who opened the door, might lead us to the idea of some mystery, but to none akin to any ideas I could form of either of such circumstances. He led us about as if he did not in the least know where to take us, or what to do with us. At last we got into a small and quite unfurnished den; and he held a long thin candle for our service, but seemed afraid to act as Swedish servants always do, in pulling off and on boots and shoes, and stockings and cloaks, &c.

Off this naked den was a gloomy closet, from whence a faint light issued. I penetrated its recess, in hopes of meeting the shade of Queen Christina; but I only startled that of a miserable looking old man, who, without a chair, was leaning over the top of a high chest, using it as a table to read his psalm-book. But for that book I might have been frightened, and fancied I had been led wrong, and was to be made the heroine of my own romance; however, few people read a good book when meditating a bad action, so I dismissed all fear of robbers.

At last, a young woman of my acquaintance ran

into the room, exclaiming and scolding at my having been taken there. Then the facts of the case came out. The house and its premises were now a manufactory: the men I had seen were workmen, who had nothing at all to say to the wedding, poor fellows; and hearing me speak English to my companion, they never imagined that he could speak Swedish, or I either, and so let us do just as we liked. Another point which I began to understand was, that the house was lent only for the celebration of this wedding. As the bridegroom had to come a distance of fifty English miles on one side, and the bride about thirty on the other, they had agreed to begin a good rule in married life at the starting-post, and to meet halfway even at the altar; the man, whose greatness, we think, consists in yielding, giving up nearly half the distance in honour of the weaker being.

Leaving the young woman of the house to complete the toilet we had suspended, I made my way alone to that large low-ceiled apartment, called in barbarised Swedish-French salong, where an abundant supply of wooden logs was burning in an immense old stove, covered with what we call Dutch tiles. In the centre of this large, bare unfurnished room, and just under the glass