40 Ellen Key All her Sundays, Christmas and Easter holi- days were spent with her aunt and uncle, Count Skoldebrand, Governor of the Royal Palace. As she grew famiHar with the beauty of the palace, her love for great architecture was aroused. Her lonely wanderings in what was then the Stone Museum in one of the wings of the palace—before the National Museimi was built—nurtured her love of sculpture, which had already been awakened by the many Thorwaldsen works she had seen in the home, where even her mother's writing desk held bas-reliefs by that artist. Even at the age of seven, when she made her first visit to Thorwaldsen's Museum in Copen- hagen, she greatly enjoyed the works of art familiar to her at home, and the gods and god- desses which she recognised from her reading of Greek mythology. During the confirmation period there often flitted before her mind's eye, though yet vaguely, the problem which later occupied her so deeply, the possibility of a harmony between the Ancient and the Christian ideal. Doctor Rothlieb, Ellen's religious instructor, was the idol of the day, and most of his pupils worshipped him. But neither he nor any other minister or teacher could find in Ellen