“Now what does Lieutenant Lagerlöf think about it?” queried the other sister.
“What do I think? Well,” he replied, “I say it couldn’t have turned out differently when we sent a school-priest like him ashore. He was no man for Tita Gray.”
“Do you mean, Lieutenant, that if we had sent another—yourself perhaps—we would have had a better reception?”
“Gad, yes!” exploded the Lieutenant.
Lord, how they laughed! The pall of gloom lifted in a twinkling, as they pictured the meeting between Lieutenant Lagerlöf and Tita Gray.
Aye, aye, he knew right enough that he could have managed her.
Lord, how they laughed!
[VII
THE BIRD OF PARADISE]
THEY had taken for the summer a cosy little cottage at the end of Karlagatan, where they were so happy and content that Lieutenant Lagerlöf and the children named the place Little Mårbacka, which was assuredly the highest title of distinction they could bestow on a house in a strange city.