Now there were to be still further improvements. The whole roof was to be torn off, the trusses raised, and the timber walls heightened. The year before he had had a couple of good carpenters at work on the place preparing the new roof trusses, so that the roof could be raised and covered as quickly as possible. The workmen had but just finished the trusses when the Lieutenant got word that his father-in-law had passed away. This was a sad loss and a heavy blow as well. The Lieutenant had lost his main prop and stay. Hereafter he would have no one but himself to depend on. Now out of his estate he must pay all contracted debts. His sons were then nearly grown and must soon be sent to the University of Upsala; therefore he thought it best to postpone the building work for a year or so. But what one puts off is likely to be left undone. Fresh obstacles continually loomed in the way of this work. One year the Lieutenant was ill, and the next he had to help a brother-in-law who had once been well-to-do but must now have a yearly stipend. While the Lieutenant had been labouring to build up his property the years had passed without his noting them. He was now a man of fifty, and the old daring spirit of enterprise had perhaps slipped away from him. It was with no light heart he relinquished his cherished plan of rebuilding the house. That was to have been his crowning work. All his life he had dreamed of erecting a fine manor-house on his beloved Mårbacka. The great piles of timber and the finished roof trusses lay in the backyard for many years. Whenever the Lieutenant walked past them he turned his head away; he could not bear to look at them. His little daughters had been so very happy when he started on the roof trusses, and not altogether on account of the “royal visit.” It was perhaps of more importance to them that they should have a real salon to dance in, and that the house should have two stories, and be as grand as Iron-Master Wallroth’s Gårdsjö or Engineer Noreen’s country seat. They grew uneasy over the delay, year after year, and one of the girls finally mustered the courage to ask her father when he was going to put up those roof trusses. “I’m afraid never, my child!” When he said this his face twitched and there was a strange catch in his voice. Then, quickly recovering himself, he added, banteringly: “But it doesn’t matter now, my girl. They are building a railway to Norway, and hereafter the King won’t come asking for a night’s lodging, either at Mårbacka or any other manor in Värmland.” WORKDAYS AND FÊTE-DAYS I NOONING LIEUTENANT LAGERLÖF believed that children, in order to grow up healthy and strong and become useful and capable men and women, should above all things acquire the habit of nooning. With that object in mind, always, after the midday meal, he would take the two youngest children down to the farm-office, which was in another building a few steps from the house.