Then who should come up but old Engineer Ivan Warberg from Angersby, with a cartful of pretty girls! A jubilant whoop from the veranda! What, a confirmed old bachelor like Ivan Warberg? Who would have thought it! They all know, to be sure, that the girls are his nieces, and his guests for the summer; but they can’t resist the fun of teasing Ivan a bit. The little Lagerlöf girls think it strange Fru Hedda does not appear. True, she no longer lives at East Ämtervik; but they hope she will come and do something 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 Ås, 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. The gentlemen offer an arm to the ladies and, led by the band, the couples march through the garden down to the little park. There they gather round a table on which stand glasses of punch and claret-cup. Obviously, the moment has come for the birthday speech and the toast to Lieutenant Lagerlöf. Engineer Noreen, Senator Nils Andersson, and Herr Nilsson of Visteberg have all come prepared to speak. Each wonderingly looks at the others, and hesitates, not wanting to push forward and take the word from his rivals. “Well, are we to have something?” the Lieutenant asks. These high-flown set speeches are not to his taste, and he is anxious to have that part of the programme over as quickly as possible. Just then from behind him comes a clear voice, with musical Stockholm intonations, and out of the thicket steps a beautiful Zingara. She asks if she may tell his fortune. Taking his left hand between her two pretty hands, she reads the lines of his palm.