thing jolly. Somehow, it would not be a real seventeenth of August unless she were there.
And now come the nearest neighbours. Pastor Milén and his boys have moved to another parish. To-day, it is the tall, handsome Pastor Lindegren and his sweet little wife who stroll over from the parsonage. From Där Ner in Mårbacka come Mother Kersten and Father Olof; but they are not the only peasant-folk who want to felicitate the Lieutenant. Old man Larsson of Äs, the richest man in the parish, has come with his daughters; the Senator from Bävik with his wife, and the church warden of Västmyr with his.
The little girls are in a perfect twitter of excitement as they stand beside their father and see all who come. One whom they most anxiously await is Jan Asker. They do hope he is not hurt about something and will stay away. They try to count heads, but as people keep pouring in from every direction they soon lose the count. Maybe there are already a hundred guests! They hope it will be a gay party. It sounds so grand to the children when somebody says there were a hundred persons gathered at Mårbacka on the seventeenth of August.
But this receiving is merely an introduction to that which is to follow. It is the same with the coffee-drinking on the lawn. The children wish all such things were over.
Ah, at last it is going to begin! The brass sextette line up in position below the steps. A march is struck.
