by Bellman and Leopold copied in his hand. They knew that the harpsichord and guitar had come to Mårbacka in his time, and they created in fancy a beautiful image of him. It was not only from the old housekeeper they had heard anecdotes of him, but also from their father and their father's sisters. He was a charming gentleman of fine taste, who always liked to wear good clothes and who loved flowers and apples. He must have been a bird-lover, too, for it was he who put up the octangular dove-cote that stood on the green outside the kitchen window. He had planned and worked to make Mårbacka a beautiful home. The clergymen who dwelt there before him must have lived mostly in the peasant manner, while he had softened the old severe simplicity by introducing some of the manners and customs of gentlefolk, thus rendering life there richer and easier.
There was an old oil painting at Mårbacka from the time of Pastor Wennervik. It was a portrait of his early love—a rich and high-born young lady of the Province of Västergötland. He had been tutor to her brother, and being no doubt the best looking and most charming young man she had met up to then, she fell in love with him, and he with her. The lovers had their trysting places in the bowers of the manor park, where they spoke of their love and pledged eternal fidelity. But one day they were discovered, and the young tutor was promptly dismissed.
All that was left to him of love's young dream was this
