Youth and First Years in Stockholm 39 Century of the Child she relates, how, after having waited in vain for some sign, she yet wished to give God respite, and said to herself: "If the words are still here in this secluded place to-morrow, then He is surely- dead, but if He has erased them, He lives!" The following day the words were gone, but, thinking she saw traces of the gardener's rake, the uncertainty as to whether this or the finger of God had decided the question, con- tinued. It is remarkable with what earnest- ness and desire for truth the ten-year-old child proceeds. This restless seeking mood continued all through her early ' 'teens. ' ' During the winter of 1864-65, which she spent in Stockholm on account of her confirmation, she lived in a religious home, where she was impressed "not by religious phrases, but by a truly religious life, " and by the harmony and great- ness of spirit it revealed. Through her associ- ation with Mina and Karin Ahlin, in whose school she was a boarder,—especially through the genial Mina—she came to realise the beauty of Christianity. "And so I became a Christian, and in deepest earnestness tried to live as a Christian, struggling ceaselessly against the demands of intellect, personality, and beauty.