In those days, when the young gentlemen would go many a mile for the sake of a dance, they, too, began to pay their respects to Lieutenant Lagerlöf on the seventeenth of August. Besides, there were the relatives from other parts of the country who visited Mårbacka every summer, and they planned their trips so as to be present on the Lieutenant’s birthday. As it was always fine weather on the seventeenth of August, in the Lieutenant’s lifetime, the guests would while away the time strolling about the grounds, viewing his gardens and buildings. If many young people were present, the dancing would begin before supper. Everyone, no doubt, had a pleasant enough time, though no more so than at other parties. Then happily Lieutenant Adolf Hedberg and his pretty young wife came to live at East Ämtervik. At Lieutenant Lagerlöf’s next birthday party an old peasant woman with a basket of eggs to sell stalked into the kitchen in the midst of the festivities. She was immediately ordered out, of course; no one had time to stop and buy eggs in the bustle and excitement, with so many guests to be served. Not in the least discouraged, the old woman went round to the veranda, where the Lieutenant sat with a circle of gentlemen. Indeed she was not embarrassed by the presence of the company; her tongue wagged so rapidly and she was so facetiously persistent, he had to buy her eggs to get rid of her. Even after she had stuffed the money into the pocket of her kirtle, she would not go. Then she wanted to know who the other gentlemen were, and commented rather freely on their personal appearance. Finally, young Lieutenant Hedberg, who thought the joke had gone far enough, said: “You’d better stop now, Hedda.” Whereupon the “old peasant woman” rushed up, and dealt him a sound box on the ear. “Why, Adolph!” she cried, “how can you be so mean as to give me away like that!” And indeed it was a shame, for her disguise was so perfect and her Värmland dialect so deliciously natural that none would have taken her for the charming lady from Stockholm. That bit of drollery set the ball of talents rolling. Along in the evening Kristofer Wallroth sang a number of Eric Bögh’s ditties. He had no voice to speak of, but his rendition of the serio-comic was side-splitting. At the end, Auditor Afzelius, with a silk kerchief bound round his head and a mantilla thrown over his shoulder, sang “Emilie’s Heart-throbs.” That was, of course, the star feature of the evening; the Auditor was inimitable in the rôle of the lovelorn maiden.