Roland and Lina made fun of his clumsy play.
Lina and Roland kept up a constant running fight; she struggled with the boy as if she were a boy herself, and they tried to throw each other down in the endeavor to catch a hoop tossed beyond the circle. But Roland was not thrown down, and escaped from all her clutches as smoothly as a weasel. The Architect smiled as he looked at Lina's fawn-colored gaiter-boots. As Eric was leaping forward to catch a hoop which Manna had thrown on one side, he fell his whole length on the lawn.
Manna laughed outright.
As soon as Lina heard it she clapped her hands, exclaiming,—
"The princess is set free! Manna has, heretofore, been the princess who couldn't laugh. Captain, you've broken the spell! What name shall we give to the knight who has set our Manna free?" Lina was overflowing with merriment, and she might indeed take pride in having been the means of enlivening the whole house, and, more than all, Manna.
Eric succeeded in turning his fall into a joke, and he was at a loss, when he looked at his mother, to know why she shook her head so strangely. He had entirely forgotten how she reminded him with pride during those sad days when Bella was visiting the villa, that his father had said he had never had a fall.
Manna's cheeks had never before glowed so brightly as they did to-day; the spell upon her seemed broken; one deep, hearty, childlike burst of laughter had given her new life. She was sorely vexed, but she could make no suitable response when Lina said to Herr Sonnenkamp:—
"Your Highness! The king was obliged to give the princess in marriage to the knight who made her laugh, and public proclamation was made of it from the tower of the castle throughout all lands. Now say what you will give to Herr Dournay."
"I grant him a kiss," answered Sonnenkamp.
"Herr Dournay, you are authorized to kiss Manna, her father grants permission," Lina called out to the company.