The Crown Prince received the cheque with an amazed but gracious smile.
About half a year later, Lähnfeldt received two large letters with seals of State and Portuguese stamps. One contained an account of the use to which his money had been put in an Orphanage in Lisbon, the other letter contained the letters patent of his title.
He rushed down to Lisbon and threw himself at the feet of the newly crowned King Charles. Then he rushed home again to buy an estate as a background to his new dignity. And now he sat here at Trefvinge, the ancestral home of the Oxenstierna family, and tried to fill out the magnificent frame.
Such was Count Lähnfeldt’s history.
He had one great grief. The title was not hereditary. Already in Elvira’s childhood he would look at the little plebeian with compassion and melancholy. And when she grew up his only hope lay in a suitable marriage for her.
“You must marry, Elvira,” he preached. “If you don’t marry you will remain plain ‘Miss’ all your life.”
But it had not pleased Miss Elvira to marry yet. She was already nearing thirty. Some suitors she had turned away herself, others had withdrawn of their own accord, to the great astonishment of all but the initiated.
Neither Stellan nor Manne belonged to the initiated. But both were in such miserable circumstances. And they knew only too well each other’s business at Trefvinge. All the same, they kept countenance when they met out in the sunshine on the steps, at least Stellan did. Manne was not quite so happy. The poor boy had of course arrived first at the mill but it hurt him all the same to stand in the way of an old friend. So he cast timid and remorseful glances at Stellan when he helped Miss Elvira into the saddle.
She, on the other hand, seemed in excellent spirits this morning.
“Come on, Captain Selamb,” she said with a little side-glance at her father. “Cæsar II is free. We are riding towards the sand pit.”