“I had to ease her mind to get her to go,” the housekeeper explained. “And so you said my crown would be of myrtle as surely as hers was. Now you’ll see, Maja, there will be no bridal-crown for me!” “Oh, you’ll be married right enough, Mamselle Lovisa. Pastor Milén is not the man to jilt you.” “Who knows? Something else might come up to prevent it.” Mamselle Lovisa worried over this a few days, and then let it pass out of mind. She had other things to think of. In six months the wedding was to take place, and she must begin at once on the household linens and the trousseau. She set up looms, sewed, and worked monograms. She finally went to Karlstad to shop, and returned with the fabric for a wedding dress and a little wire frame of a crown, to be bound with myrtle. She did not wish to use the old frame worn by so many brides, but wanted a bridal-crown of her own. But these purchases had no sooner been made than the unexpected happened. Pastor Milén became ill and was confined to his bed a long time. When he recovered sufficiently to be up and about he seemed strangely changed. People noticed that he did not care to talk with his betrothed, and never went the short distance to Mårbacka to see her. When summer came he went away to a health resort. During his long absence he never once wrote to Mamselle Lovisa. It was a time of anxiety and distress for her. She inferred from his silence that he wished to break with her, and sent him back his ring. The day this happened she said to the old housekeeper: “Now you see, Maja, that my bridal-crown will not be bound with myrtle, either.” * * * * * One day, many years later, one of the young daughters of Lieutenant Lagerlöf asked her Aunt Lovisa to lend her some of the old peasant bridal things to dress up in. Mamselle Lovisa gave her the key to the cupboard where the old treasures were kept and which had long since been removed to the storeroom upstairs. The young girl unlocked the cupboard and pulled out a drawer. She gazed at the contents in astonishment. Before her lay not the usual gaudy trumpery, but only a parcel of tulle, some coloured satin fabric, and a little wire form of a bridal-crown. She saw at once that she had opened the wrong drawer, the bridal things were in the next one. Just the same, she stood a moment looking into the drawer. It wrung her heart to think that poor, unhappy Aunt Lovisa had never come to use the things lying there. She knew that for years her aunt had grieved in silence, and would not be comforted. Then something came back to memory. One day during the saddest period of her aunt’s unhappiness she had gone into her room and had found her sitting before a heap of whortleberry green, a little wire crown in her hand. Her aunt had cut off a few sprays and was binding them round the crown, when Fru Lagerlöf came in. “Why, Lovisa, whatever are you doing?” she had asked with a frightened look on her face.