“Oh, yes,” he answered, looking solemn as an owl. Such was his wish, of course; she should have guessed that long ago. The blood rushed to her face. If she had not questioned him about this before, she said, it was because she firmly believed they were destined for each other. Then, with a forced laugh, he asked her what she meant by that. She flushed crimson. Now she told him in a few words about the dream-pancake, of how in a dream she had seen him and his father, and what the father had said to her. He put down his knife and fork, and stared in amazement. “This must be something you have just made up,” he said. “You can ask Maja Persdotter if I did not recognize you and say who you were before you were out of the sledge, the first time you came to buy hay,” said Mamselle Lisa Maja, turning to the housekeeper, who was then passing round the food. “But why haven’t you spoken of this before?” he questioned her. “That, I think, you must understand,” she answered. “I did not wish to hold you by any bond but your own desire.” For a long moment he sat silent--evidently much impressed by what he had heard. Presently he asked: “Can you tell me how the man looked who said he was Dean Lagerlöf of Arvika?” “Yes,” said she, and went on to describe him. Her description of the father must have been accurate, feature for feature, for the son was so startled he involuntarily jumped up from the table. “But my father died the year I was born,” he said. “You may have heard people speak of him, perhaps?” “I had never seen a Lagerlöf nor heard of either you or your father before I met you in a dream. Ask Maja Persdotter standing there beside you if she hasn’t heard me describe your father many, many times.” He went up close to her. “If only I dared believe this!” He walked round the room and back to her.... “Why--then _you_ were the one my dear father meant for me, and not----” What Mamselle Lisa Maja replied the old housekeeper never heard, for she saw ’twas time for her to be going. The young lovers sat talking together till far into the night, and--well--that autumn they were married. Mamselle Lisa Maja afterwards told the old housekeeper it was only his morbid conscience that had stood in the way. He had felt he would be wronging the dead sweetheart, and he had brooded over his brother Elof, and thought he had no right to happiness when the brother was so unhappy--and all on account of him. But in her dream he had found something to hold to, something to be guided by, which gave him the courage to do what he wished above everything. From the day of his marriage he was a changed man, though during the first years the old despondency came over him at times; but later he was as tranquil and even-tempered as could be. A year after the wedding at Mårbacka his brother was drowned, and then for a while it was pretty hard; but that, too, passed over.