Childhood and Early Youth 35 teen. Then came the Danish War, and, when her father's half-brother, Hugo Raab, went out as a volunteer he made a visit to Sundsholm. With feelings of pride as well as sorrow the family bade him farewell, following with throbbing hearts the progress of the war in which Raab's regiment of volunteers took an honourable part. Hugo Raab, later renowned as a reformer of the General Staff, early taught Ellen to combine her love of peace with a respect for an enlightened defence. She always listened with breathless interest to a serious conversation. Society did not attract her on account of her excessive shyness, and her first ball opened with tears because she was made to appear in a gown sHghtly decollete. It was of great importance for the full de- velopment of this dreaming, introspective, and thoughtful girl that, through the com- prehensive forethought of her mother, she had her own room from the time she was twelve. She was given a nest of her very own, a gable room with blue walls and her own furniture, a little white writing desk which had been her grandfather's, a rocker presented her at the age of four, and a bookcase, also a