portraits had many holes in them, because the baron’s sons used the two old
people as targets for their crossbows. They represented the counsellor and
his wife, from whom the whole family descended. “But they did not
properly belong to our family,” said one of the boys; “he was a pedlar and
she kept the geese. They were not like papa and mamma.” The portraits
were old lumber, and “everything in its right place.” That was why the
great-grandparents had been hung up in the passage leading to the servants’
rooms.
The son of the village pastor was tutor at the mansion. One day he went
for a walk across the fields with his young pupils and their elder sister, who
had lately been confirmed. They walked along the road which passed by the
old willow tree, and while they were on the road she picked a bunch of
field-flowers. “Everything in the right place,” and indeed the bunch looked
very beautiful. At the same time she listened to all that was said, and she
very much liked to hear the pastor’s son speak about the elements and of the
great men and women in history. She had a healthy mind, noble in thought
and deed, and with a heart full of love for everything that God had created.
They stopped at the old willow tree, as the youngest of the baron’s sons
wished very much to have a flute from it, such as had been cut for him from
other willow trees; the pastor’s son broke a branch off. “Oh, pray do not do
it!” said the young lady; but it was already done. “That is our famous old
tree. I love it very much. They often laugh at me at home about it, but that
does not matter. There is a story attached to this tree.” And now she told
him all that we already know about the tree-the old mansion, the pedlar and
the goose-girl who had met there for the first time, and had become the
ancestors of the noble family to which the young lady belonged.
“They did not like to be knighted, the good old people,” she said; “their
motto was ‘everything in the right place,’ and it would not be right, they
thought, to purchase a title for money. My grandfather, the first baron, was
their son. They say he was a very learned man, a great favourite with the
princes and princesses, and was invited to all court festivities. The others at
home love him best; but, I do not know why, there seemed to me to be
