It is interesting to note that the family name of this woman means “laurel leaf,” a symbol of her fame. In _Mårbacka_, one of her later books to be translated into English, the reader finds detached photographs of the home and environment of this author’s girlhood. Mrs. Velma Swanston Howard, who has been so successful as translator of Miss Lagerlöf’s books, knows perfectly the languages of both Sweden and England; she is a friend of the author, with kinship in her traditions and spirit, and thus has sustained that indefinable but pervading “atmosphere” which characterizes all of Miss Lagerlöf’s fiction. The setting of _Mårbacka_ is alive with elements of Nature and humanity, with folklore and “wonderful tales of old Varmland” which became the basis for many of her later books. The spacious manor house, where Selma Lagerlöf was born sixty-seven years ago, becomes familiar to readers of this autobiography. The nursery chairs, with individual names and portraits of Johan, Anna, and little Selma Ottiliana Louisa, were treasured heirlooms; the beds that “parted company,” perhaps, in the night and the old owl in the lumber-loft above the bedroom, contributed infantile “thrills” and memories. A gay-hearted, courageous, popular man was her father, Lieutenant Lagerlöf, retired from the army but entertaining former associates in his home and recounting, for his daughter’s education, tales of earlier history of Sweden and his family. The germ-idea of Gösta Berling, hero of her first romance, came after a reminiscence that her father had told her one morning after breakfast, his memory of “the most fascinating of men,” one who could sing, write poetry, dance so that all feet moved in unison, and could bend everyone’s will to his own mood--and yet one who lacked certain qualities of manly strength. The mother of Selma Lagerlöf came from two generations of ministers; she was quiet, practical, intuitive, a fine administrator of her large household and frequent guests. Aunt Lovisa gave a touch of romance to the family circle by a sad chapter in her past that is recounted in “The Bridal Crown,” the tragic result (according to legend) of the substitution of whortleberry for myrtle in the wreath for the bride’s hair. The nurse, Back-Kaisa, large and stern yet devoted to the family, was another interesting character at Mårbacka; from the old housekeeper and the grandmother the children learned stories, sagas, and bits of family histories.