"If you marry me you will get peace," he says.
"No. Nor shall I ever know peace again," she replies; "but I may have some happiness."
At this moment her fiancé enters the room. Mikko seizes the opportunity to tell him there is a secret between them that will disturb the happiness of all his future life. The girl appeals to Mikko by looks and gesticulations, but each time he manages to evade her gaze, and utters such strange insinuations that at last Johannes exclaims—
"This is too much!" and a desperate quarrel ensues.
Anna Liisa wishes to speak alone with Mikko. To this Johannes objects, thinking that Anna Liisa ought not to have any secret with Mikko unknown to him.
Then the whole family bundles home, having been to the store to buy things for the approaching festival.
"The matter is so," says Mikko, "that Anna Liisa was my bride four years ago. And now I come to take her, but that fellow has in the meantime——"
The Father. "Your bride! That's a lie."
The Mother. "Good gracious! You want me to believe all kinds of things—Anna Liisa—who then was only fifteen years old. Don't listen to such things, Johannes. They're only senseless chat. I'll warrant that they have no foundation whatever. Besides, others would certainly have noticed had any such relations existed between them."
Mikko. "It was not noticed. We succeeded in concealing it so well that nobody had the slightest idea."