The door opened, and the three girls and their little brother came in, carrying the tray with the glasses and the jug of hot water, which task they seemed to have apportioned among themselves according to the rules for the procession at the Duke of Marlborough's funeral, where, as is known, the fourth one carried nothing.
The tall, blond Kathinka marched at the head with the tray and glasses with the clinking teaspoons in them. She attempted the feat of curtseying, while she was carrying the tray, and blushed red when it was ready to slip, and the lieutenant was obliged to take hold of it to steady it.
He immediately noticed the next oldest, a brunette with long eyelashes, who was coming with the smoking water-jug on a plate, while the youngest, Thea, was immediately behind her with the sugar-bowl.
"But, my dear Peter Jäger," exclaimed Rönnow, astonished at the appearance of his friend's almost grown-up daughters, "when have you picked up all this? You wrote once about some girls,—and a boy who was to be baptized."
At the same moment Jörgen came boldly forward, strutting over the floor, and made his best bow, while he pulled his bristly yellow locks instead of his cap.
"What is your name?"
"Jörgen Winnecken von Zittow Jäger."
"That was heavy! You are a perfect mountain boy, are you not? Let me see you kick as high as your name."
"No, but as high as my cap," answered Jörgen, going back on the floor and turning a cart-wheel.
"Bold fellow, that Jörgen!" And with that, as Jörgen had done his part, he stepped back into obscurity. But while the gentlemen were pouring out the arrack punch at the folding-table, he kept his eyes uninterruptedly fastened on Lieutenant Mein. It was the lieutenant's regularly trimmed black moustache, which seemed to him like bits that he had not got into his mouth properly.