feed it in the bargain. When there was shifts to be made, they had to fetch home whole bolts of linen, and sempstresses and tailors and shoemakers never found time to go to other places in the parish, for they'd enough to do in that one place."
"But, my dear Jungfru Anna, however could the dean and his wife manage to bring up so many children?" Fru Lagerlöf said to get her well started.
"Ah, but they did, though, and they turned out grand, all of them. You never saw better children. Only think! the oldest daughter, Eve—what a handy one she was at making baby things and tending little ones! And she got married, indeed, at seventeen to Curate Jansson of Skilanda, and when he died she got a dean in Västergötland. She had a lot of children, and after she'd stood a bride the first time she never showed herself again in her father's house."
"She probably thought there were enough without her," observed the Lieutenant, dryly.
The little girls over in the chimney-corner began to giggle; but they got such a sharp look from the jungfru they subsided instantly.
"The next to the oldest was a boy named Adam," the jungfru continued. "He was the worst child for crying I ever came across. But later on, when he became a priest, he chanted the service so beautiful that he was made Court Chaplain. He could have married any one he liked, but he had no such wish. For some reason he remained a bachelor all his life."
