Midway between Gårdsjö and Mårbacka lies As Springs, an old health resort he had once undertaken to modernize. He had built a fine new bath house and engaged a corps of male and female attendants, with the hope that health-seekers would flock to the place. That was also a failure. Now and again an invalid came, but it hardly paid to keep the resort open.
And to cap it all, his barn-building was a lamentable failure! There must be something lacking in him, he thought; he was perhaps less capable than other men. The best thing he could do was to give up his plans, settle down in his rocker, read his newspaper, and let things run on in the old ruts.
Coming home he found his wife seated on the front steps awaiting him. She was very like her brother at Gårdsjö; she had the same intelligent face, the same clear head, the same serious turn of mind, the same love of work and indifference to pleasure, and the same dislike of all that was uncertain and venturesome.
The Lieutenant was very fond of his wife and moreover respected her judgment as he did her brother's. But that evening he would rather she had not sat up for him. She, too, was against him in this building project.
"What did Kalle say?" Fru Lagerlöf asked him, as they went to their room.
"He thinks like you and the rest, that I should give up the work."
Fru Lagerlöf made no reply. She had dropped into
