The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Home, by Fredrika Bremer

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Title: The Home

Author: Fredrika Bremer

Translator: Mary Howitt

Release Date: March 5, 2007 [EBook #20746]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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FREDRIKA BREMER'S WORKS.

THE HOME

OR, LIFE IN SWEDEN.

TRANSLATED
BY MARY HOWITT.

LONDON:
HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
1853.

C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE.

THE HOME:

OR, LIFE IN SWEDEN.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

MORNING DISPUTE AND EVENING CONTENTION.

"My sweet friend," said Judge Frank, in a tone of vexation, "it is not
worth while reading aloud to you if you keep yawning incessantly, and
looking about, first to the right and then to the left;" and with these
words he laid down a treatise of Jeremy Bentham, which he had been
reading, and rose from his seat.

"Ah, forgive me, dear friend!" returned his wife, "but really these good
things are all somewhat indigestible, and I was thinking about----Come
here, dear Brigitta!" said Mrs. Elise Frank, beckoning an old servant to
her, to whom she then spoke in an under tone.

Whilst this was going on, the Judge, a handsome strong-built man of
probably forty, walked up and down the room, and then suddenly pausing
as if in consideration, before one of the walls, he exclaimed to his
wife, who by this time had finished her conversation with the old
servant, "See, love, now if we were to have a door opened here--and it
could very easily be done, for it is only a lath-and-plaster wall--we
could then get so conveniently into our bedroom, without first going
through the sitting-room and the nursery--it would indeed be capital!"

"But then, where could the sofa stand?" answered Elise, with some
anxiety.

"The sofa?" returned her husband; "oh, the sofa could be wheeled a
little aside; there is more than room enough for it."

"But, my best friend," replied she, "there would come a very dangerous
draft from the door to every one who sat in the co