and rose garden and those surrounding the front and back yards.
"Well, this is the end of all comfort and joy in this place!" sighed Mamselle Lovisa. "Think how secure one felt when once inside all the white fences! And what fun it was for the children to run out and open the gates when company came!"
"It was less fun, though, for the one who had to keep so many fences and gates in repair," the Lieutenant replied.
He went right on with his work. When the fences were down he ploughed up the old kitchen garden and the little rose garden, the old trampled sward, the ground where the old barn had stood, and the calf ward, so as to have the grounds cleared for the laying of the garden in the spring.
"Is it true that you're going to remove the kitchen garden?" said Mamselle Lovisa. "To be sure I don't know anything, but I have heard folks say that when the apple trees are allowed to grow in the herb beds they bear well, but if one plants sod round them one can't expect much fruit."
"But dear little Lovisa, I thought you would be glad to have a real garden!"
"Glad! Should I be glad that you are destroying the old Mårbacka? Soon we won't know the place at all."
The Lieutenant thought his sister unusually contentious in this instance, which was the more surprising
