"Oh, here, my girl!" said Rönnow, turning to one of the daughters, who stood by his side while he was putting some sugar into the steaming glass, "what is your name?"
"Inger-Johanna."
"Yes, listen"—he spoke without seeing anything else than the arm he touched to call her attention. "Listen, my little Inger-Johanna! In the breast pocket of my fur coat out in the hall there are two lemons—I didn't believe that fruit grew up here in the mountains, Peter!—two lemons."
"No, let me! Pardon me!" and the lieutenant flew gallantly.
Captain Rönnow looked up, astonished. The dark, thin girl, in the outgrown dress which hung about her legs, and the three thick, heavy, black cables, braided closely for the occasion, hanging down her back, stood distinct in the light before him. Her neck rose, delicately shaped and dazzlingly fresh, from the blue, slightly low-cut, linsey-woolsey dress, and carried her head proudly, with a sort of swan-like curve.
The captain grasped at once why the lieutenant was so alert.
"Bombs and grenades, Peter!" he exclaimed.
"Do you hear that, Ma?" the captain grunted slyly.
"Up here among the peasants the children—more's the pity—grow up without any other manners than those that they learn of the servants," sighed the mother. "Don't stand so bent over, Thinka, straighten up."
Thinka straightened up her overgrown blond figure and tried to smile. She had the difficult task of hiding a plaster on one side of her chin, where a day or two before she had fallen down through the cellar trap-door in the kitchen.