second dinner,
in consequence thereof; so that giving one dinner always involved giving
two. Fortunately the obligation was cancelled by the second, or the
visits and dinners might have gone on alternately, _ad infinitum_.

At dinners and evening parties, white gloves and white cravats are
invariably worn, and generally white vests. The same custom is observed
at funerals, even the drivers of the hearse and carriages being
furnished with resplendent white gloves for the occasion. I have a
horror of white cravats, and took advantage of the traveller's privilege
to wear a black one. I never could understand why, in England, where the
boundaries of caste are so distinctly marked, a gentleman's full dress
should be his servant's livery. The chimney-pots are no protection to
the head in raw or very cold weather, and it required no little courage
in me to appear in fur or felt. "I wish I could wear such a comfortable
hat," said a Swede to me; "but I _dare not_; you are a traveller, and it
is permitted; but a Swede would lose his position in society, if he were
to do so." Another gentleman informed me that his own sisters refused to
appear in the streets with him, because he wore a cap. A former English
Consul greatly shocked the people by carrying home his own marketing. A
few gentlemen have independence enough to set aside, in their own
houses, some of the more disagreeable features of this conventionalism,
and the success of two or three, who held weekly soirees through the
winter, on a more free and unrestrained plan, may in the end restore
somewhat of naturalness and spontaneity to the society of Stockholm.

The continual taking off of your hat to everybody you know, is a great
annoyance to many strangers. A lift of the hat, as in Germany, is not
sufficient. You must remove it entirely, and hold it in the air a second
or two before you replace it. King Oscar once said to an acquaintance of
mine, who was commiserating him for being obliged to keep his hat off,
the whole length of the Drottning-gatan, in a violent snow-storm: "You
are quite right; it was exceedingly disagreeable, and I could not help
wishing that instead of being king of Sweden, I were king of Thibet,
where, according to Huc, the polite salutation is simply to stick out
your tongue." The consideration extended to foreigners is, I am told,
quite withdrawn after they become residents; so that, as an Englishman
informed me, Stockholm is much more pleasant the