“Well well,” said Eric, “there you are a queen.  My father will turn over all power to you, and you may make as many reforms as you please.”

Part III.

A few days after the visit of Eric, the groom of M. de Vermondans took from the carriage-house two sleighs, trimmed with wolf and bear-skins, and harnessed to each of them a spirited horse, the activity of which seemed enhanced by the cold morning air.  In the first sleigh sat M. de Vermondans and Alete; and Ireneus and Ebba entered the second.

“Are we ready?” said the old man, as he took the reins in one hand, and the whip in the other.

“Yes,” said Ireneus, after he had wrapped up the delicate frame confided to him in a large Astracan-skin.

“Well, let us start.”  The horses, as soon as the reins were loosed, left the house at a gallop.

“I am glad,” said Ebba to Ireneus, “that you are in Sweden at this season, which to us is so solemn.”

“Do you then celebrate Christmas with so much pomp?”

“I do not think it is celebrated in any country of the world with so much joy and unanimity, from the northern extremity of the realm to the southern boundary, in town and country, in palace and peasant’s hut.”

“I am sure that in this festival there are touching usages, with which you are thoroughly acquainted.  I shall be delighted if you will explain them to me.  All you have told me of your popular legends and superstitions, opens to me, as it were, a new world, in which, I assure you, I am glad to wander.”

“Were I not afraid that I would appear pedantic to you.” said Ebba, “I would tell you what Eric has told me about our Christmas festival.  It appears to date back to a remote day before the Christian era.  At this season our pagan ancestors celebrated the winter solstice, just as on the 25th of June they did that of summer.  The early name of this festival, which we yet preserve, indicates an astronomical idea.  It was called Julfest. (the feast of the wheel,) certainly because the sun, the evolutions of which are on the 25th December marked by the shortest day, and June 25th by the longest.  Whatever may have been, the primitive nature of this festival, Christianity gave it an august character.  To us it is not a material symbol, but tho commemoration of the day on which the Savior of earth was born in a stable.  That day seems to announce glad tidings to the Swedish peasant, as it did to the shepherds of Bethlehem, for each seem to rejoice.  The courts and schools have recess, parents and friends visit each other, not to discharge the common duty of politeness, to leave a card with the porter, but to pass whole hours in gayety and frank intercourse.”