country parsonages, the duchess and her
mother get the honour and trust that they give.

But the remarkable success of her grace as
an independent tourist, we would humbly
observe, is not due to her being "the same
sort of a creature" as a man: it is not due to
the natural self-dependence, but to the
helplessness of her sex. This she took with her,
and displayed everywhere as a passport.
Instead of one travelling protector, who
would, in dealing with his own sex, "make
rows," she committed herself to the care of a
long chain of stationary protectors, who were
bound in gallantry to take care that she had
her way. At each station the women would
make common cause with her against every
male traveller; the men would owe her
everything that was chivalrous. In the very
worst place they stopped at on the road, our
"Unprotected Females in Norway" (so they
are called by the title of the book) record
that the people "showed that they had some
refinement about them, by politely charging
us much less than the gentlemen; and what
was our surprise and their disgust at finding
that such had been the case at all the stations
where we had stopped; and they had worse
accommodation into the bargain! Fancy
gallantry being carried to such a point—
almost to chivalry, which it actually attained
at some places, where we were charged
nothing." If the two ladies arriving at some
place found that gentlemen had already
bespoken the best beds, they took those beds
by the connivance of the landlady, and turned
the gentlemen into worse quarters.
Whenever horses were waited for at a station;
whatever gentlemen might be in a hurry,
the ladies were always despatched in advance;
and, says the duchess, "we saw quite a row
at one of the stations through the postmaster
insisting upon giving us, without our
suggestion, a horse which arrived the first."

Here is a scene, showing how wise it is
for ladies, when they travel, to depend upon
their helplessness:—"The fat of the land
was spread before us: fish, melted butter,
potatoes, coffee, and sweet and brown bread,
which we thought a delicious finish; when,
as dessert, what should come in but a
joint of cold meat! We felt jolly—actually
jolly—over a Norske meal; and when at
length we left off, and went into the kitchen
to congratulate the inestimable kone, our
dismay was great at finding her in tears.
The daughter maliciously told us we ought
to console her, being the cause of them; for
the kind soul had not only marched the
gentlemen out of the pretty little parlour,
that we might eat in quiet, but carried her
feminine tenderness so far as to help us first,
while they were taken up with smoking and
grumbling; and when they saw even the
coffee carried out, disregarding her prejudices
about ladies first, one jumped up with such
menacing gestures, that, though she could
not understand a word he said, she sat down
and wept, taking a bitter lesson in civilised
politeness." This may mean the politeness
of the gentleman, or the politeness of the
duchess; we are not quite sure which is the
more admirable. To be unwilling that gentlemen
should, for their greater enjoyment of
quiet, be "marched out of the pretty little
parlour," and that other people should be
baulked of their dinners until they had
themselves done, feeling "jolly—actually jolly," was
not in the nature of the Unprotected Females.
There were the gentlemen making rows, as
usual; there were the ladies perfectly
content. Here we have, from the pen of the
duchess herself, the whole theory of
Unprotectedness, which consists, at bottom, in a
constant demand on the general protection,
and on something more than that, upon
unlimited service and indulgence. "It is
astonishing," says her grace, in the very first
chapter of her story, "it is astonishing, if
ladies look perfectly helpless and innocent,
how people fall into the trap, and exert to
save them. Unprotecteds cannot do better
than keep firm to the old combination of the
qualities of the serpent and the dove."

We doubt very much whether even the
Norwegian peasantry would allow male
travellers, on entering their houses, to put on
their clothes, open and shut their drawers
and cupboards at discretion, and make
themselves wholly at home on the premises, after
the manner allowed to the unprotected sex,
when taking its own way about the land.
"Except at one or two places," her grace
tells us, "you must help yourself to everything,
and ought never to arrive late and
fatigued. It is no light matter hunting for
things in a strange house, pulling out all the
drawers, and making excursions to half-a-
dozen different buildings, where things are
indiscriminately kept, while it is still more
fatiguing bawling to the people to do it for
you. But if you can manage to arrive in
tolerable time, and enter into the spirit of it,
becoming completely a peasant for the
occasion, it is quite a part of Norwegian travel,
and can fairly rank as fun, the people always
good-naturedly resigning the premises
entirely into your hands. When we had done,
we put out our cups and teapot, hearing
awful groans proceeding from the opposite
room, occasioned, perhaps, by the gentlemen
having to compress themselves into an
excruciatingly small space."

Had these two possessors of the "only tolerable
bedroom" and the teapot, been of the
unprivileged—not of the unprotected—sex, it is
possible that a more even division of the space
might have been necessary, and that their
brethren in the other room would not have
been content humbly to wait until it was
convenient for them to "put out the teapot."