give way under the storm. The Lieutenant cries out:
"Yi, yi, Melanoz! It's none of the outlanders winning now!"
The young folk at Mårbacka have rehearsed a little play, but the players feel rather disheartened as they are about to appear; they have nothing to offer comparable to Uncle Oriel's allegory.
Anna Lagerlöf is now fourteen, and this is her first appearance in a regular part. The piece is called "A Cigar," and she is cast for the role of the young wife.
Indeed, the performance is far from a failure, thanks to the acting of little Anna Lagerlöf! "How does that child come by her histrionic talent?" people wonder. She acts with such ease, naturalness, and charm, the spectators cannot get over their surprise. "That little girl is going to be a heart-breaker," some are heard to say. "Why, the lass is really pretty!" comes from another quarter. "And how well she acts, too!"
It seemed as if the plaudits and curtain calls would never end.
"Do you see. Lieutenant," shouts Sexton Melanoz above the tumult, "that the natives can hold their own?"
But at last they clamber down the break-neck attic stairs. Then they dance again, and chatter, and drink toddies, and some of them take to story-telling, for which up to then there has been no time.
After supper, at midnight, the Chinese lanterns arc lit. This is done every year now, and must never be
