Then, one evening, when their parents had gone to a party, the housemaid, who was to sit up for them, had persuaded Maja, the new nurse, who succeeded Back-Kaisa, to keep her company. They made a fire in the tile-stove of the nursery, drew up the children’s little red chairs, and sat talking in whispers so as not to disturb the three little girls, who had gone to bed. By and by the door creaked and in walked the old housekeeper. She had been wondering where the housemaid had betaken herself, and had been all through the house looking for her. She, too, drew up a chair. Anyway, she declared she’d not be able to sleep till she knew the master and mistress were safely home. Now that the three of them were seated by the open fire so cosy and intimate-like, the two maids seized the opportunity to ask the old housekeeper’s advice in a weighty matter. “We were just saying, Lina and I, that we ought to make dream-porridge,” said Nurse Maja; “but we don’t know as ’twould do any good.” In that way they tempted the old housekeeper to tell what had happened when Lisa Maja Wennervik made a dream-pancake. On New Year’s Eve of the last Christmas Week that Pastor Wennervik was alive Mamselle Lisa Maja, for fun, made a dream-pancake. She had just turned seventeen, and ’twas time for her to be thinking of marriage. So she measured out three spoonfuls of water, three spoonfuls of meal, and three spoonfuls of salt, and stirred them together, then she poured the mixture on a hot griddle, ate as much of the pancake as she could get down, and went right to bed. She must have had some difficulty getting to sleep, though, for the salty pancake had given her an awful thirst; and to drink anything before sleeping would break the spell. In the morning she couldn’t remember whether she had dreamt anything. But later in the day, on going out on the front porch, she stopped in amazement. All at once she remembered having dreamed in the night of standing on that very spot. Two strange men--one old, one young--had come up to her. The older man had said he was Dean Lagerlöf of Arvika, and that he had come with his son to ask her if she were not thirsty and would like a drink of water. With that, the younger man had immediately stepped forward and offered her a glass of water. And she was very glad when she saw the clear, fresh water, for even in her sleep her throat felt parched. There the dream ended. But from that moment she knew who was to be her husband; for the one who comes in the dream and offers you water when you have eaten dream-pancake, he is the one you will marry. Mamselle Lisa Maja wondered how this could come about, for at that time she did not know any one by the name of Lagerlöf. But one day, soon after New Year’s, as she was standing at the window, a sledge came up the driveway. Suddenly she gave a cry and nipped the housekeeper by the sleeve. “Here comes the one I saw in the dream,” she said. “You’ll find that his name is Lagerlöf.”