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BIOGRAPHY. 3
dren as nowadays. Severe parents belong now to the
exceptions; at that time they were generally severe, and
children felt for them more fear than love and confidence.
I remember still how frequently, when we heard the voices
of our parents on their return home, we hastened to hide
ourselves in our governess’s room, or in that of our Finland
nurse, old Lena. During, the winters, in the first years of
our residence in Stockholm, my parents used to be a great
deal out in the fashionable world, and we children saw
them rarely except at stated times in the day. At eight
o’clock in the morning we were to be ready dressed, and
had to come in to say “ Good morning ” first to my mother,
who sat in a small drawing-room taking her coffee. She
looked at us with a scrutinizing glance during our walk
from the door up to her chair. If we had walked badly, we
had to go back again to the door to renew our promenade,
curtsey, and kiss her hand. If our curtsey had been awk-
wardly performed, we had to make it over again. Poor
little Fredrika could never walk, stand, sit, or curtsey to
the satisfaction of my mother, and had many bitter and
wretched moments in consequence. Then we had to go to
salute my father. When we entered his outer room, the
footman laid down a large square carpet in the centre of
the floor, and placed on it a chair, on which my father sat
down, after having been enveloped in a large white cloak
which reached down to the ankles. Mr. Hagelin, his hair-
dresser —a real original — in a light-gray overcoat, then
made his appearance with a comb stuck behind his ear
and a powder-puff in his hand, — himself powdercd, bow-
ing deeply and scraping with one foot, first to my father,
and then to us little ones. He handed the powder-puff to
the footman, who was to hold it, while he himself undid
the ribbon tied round the pigtail, and then combed and
replaited it. After that the powder-box.was produced, the
puff dipped into it, and Mr. Hagelin, like a true amateur,
with a sweet smile on his countenance, his hcad inclined
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