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BIOGRAPHY. 11
be thinly dressed, with bare neck and arms. We shivered
with cold. It was probably cold in our rooms, which were
large, and at that time double windows were unknown. I
recollect very well that often, for days together, we could
not look out of the window, the panes being covered with
ice.
When I was eight and Fredrika seven years old, we had
music and drawing masters. It was not expected in those
days, as it is now, that a governess should possess all kinds
of talent. Besides, our “Bonne Amie” would not have
been sufficient for us all, especially as she had now to teach
the younger children, Hedda and Claes, and three little
future pupils had been added to our family up to the year
1810, so that she had a whole troop in perspective.
The good little Hedda had great difficulty in learning ;
but Claes could already, at the age of six, read both Swed-
ish and French.
From seven till ten years of age, little Fredrika began
to manifest strange dispositions and inclinations. Occa-
sionally she threw into the fire whatever she could lay her
hands upon — pocket-handkerchiefs, the younger children’s
night-caps, stockings, and the like. The servants com-
plained to my mother, and Fredrika was interrogated.
She confessed at once ; and the only reason she could give
for her delinquency was, “that it was so delightful to see
the flames.” In spite of scoldings and prohibitions, she
frequently repeated this pleasure. If a knife or a pair of
scissors happened to be lying about, they, and Fredrika
too, disappeared immediately. She then walked about
alone, nieditating; and if nobody happened to be present,
she cut a piece out of a window-curtain, or a round or
square hole in the front of her dress. She looked very
awkward if interrupted in her proceedings. One day, our
parents being out, she fell upon the idea of quietly steal-
ing into the drawing-room and double locking the door.
Old Lena, suspecting that some mischief was on foot be-
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