Nearly all of these domestic customs here related apply to Sweden as well as Norway, and there are many interesting additional ones.  In Sweden the state dinners at the palace are always at six o’clock.  At nearly all the other courts of Europe it is customary to dine at eight o’clock.  The king’s dinners are short, his guests seldom remaining more than an hour at the table, after which the ladies adjourn to one of the drawing rooms, the gentlemen to the smoking room, and later all are entertained by musicians from the opera house or the royal conservatory.  Carriages are usually ordered at ten o’clock.  This seems old-fashioned, but for people who like to go to bed early and those who are occupied with business all day it is much more sensible than the custom followed in some cities, where social festivities do not begin until the hour when the king of Sweden’s guests are bidding him good night.

But everybody complains that the Swedes are drifting away from old customs and are becoming modernized.  The French influence seems to prevail, and modern Swedish life is becoming an imitation of that of Paris.

Another of the old customs is for people to indicate their business upon their visiting cards.  You will receive the card of Lawyer Jones, or Banker Smith, or Music Professor Smith, and so on; and these titles are also used in addressing them.  It would seem rather queer for any one in the United States to ask, “Wholesale Merchant MacVeigh, will you kindly pass the butter?” or “Banker Hutchinson, will you escort Fru Board of Trade Operator Jones to the table?” But that is the custom in Sweden and it is observed by children as well as grown people.  A lisping child will approach a guest, make a pretty little bob-courtesy, and say, “Good morning, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Fuller,” or “Good night, Representative in Congress Boutell.”  It is customary for ladies to print their maiden names upon their visiting cards in smaller type, under their married names, particularly if they have a pride of family and want people to know their ancestry.

To see the old Swedish customs that have almost entirely disappeared from the country, one must go to the hill districts of Dalecarlia, where the people are so unlike the rest of the Swedes in their dress, their customs and habits, and in many other respects as to almost seem another race.

The Dalecarlians are great dancers, and the social gatherings at their homes during the winter are always accompanied by that form of amusement.  During the summer they dance in the open air.  On St. John’s Day the entire population, old and young, dance around a May-pole erected at some convenient place, and at harvest time, whenever the last sheaf in a field is pitched upon the cart or the stack, it is customary for somebody to produce a musical instrument, a violin, a nyckleharpa, a harmonicum, or perhaps only a mouth organ, and everybody—­for the boys and girls of the family all work together in the hay and harvest fields—­join in a dance before returning home.