seemed a good, quiet girl, vigilant as
to Lena's needs, Gustav's tumbles, the state of Carl's dear little
nose--conscientious, hardworking, and all that. But what magnificent
hair she had! Abundant, long, thick, of a tawny colour. It had the sheen
of precious metals. She wore it plaited tightly into one single tress
hanging girlishly down her back and its end reached down to her waist.
The massiveness of it surprised you. On my word it reminded one of a
club. Her face was big, comely, of an unruffled expression. She had a
good complexion, and her blue eyes were so pale that she appeared to
look at the world with the empty white candour of a statue. You could
not call her good-looking. It was something much more impressive.
The simplicity of her apparel, the opulence of her form, her imposing
stature, and the extraordinary sense of vigorous life that seemed to
emanate from her like a perfume exhaled by a flower, made her beautiful
with a beauty of a rustic and olympian order. To watch her reaching up
to the clothes-line with both arms raised high above her head, caused
you to fall a musing in a strain of pagan piety. Excellent Mrs.
Hermann's baggy cotton gowns had some sort of rudimentary frills at neck
and bottom, but this girl's print frocks hadn't even a wrinkle; nothing
but a few straight folds in the skirt falling to her feet, and these,
when she stood still, had a severe and statuesque quality. She was
inclined naturally to be still whether sitting or standing. However, I
don't mean to say she was statuesque. She was too generously alive; but
she could have stood for an allegoric statue of the Earth. I don't mean
the worn-out earth of our possession, but a young Earth, a virginal
planet undisturbed by the vision of a future teeming with the monstrous
forms of life and death, clamorous with the cruel battles of hunger and
thought.

The worthy Hermann himself was not very entertaining, though his English
was fairly comprehensible. Mrs. Hermann, who always let off one speech
at least at me in an hospitable, cordial tone (and in Platt-Deutsch I
suppose) I could not understand. As to their niece, however satisfactory
to look upon (and she inspired you somehow with a hopeful view as to
the prospects of mankind) she was a modest and silent presence, mostly
engaged in sewing, only now and then, as I observed, falling over that
work into a state of maidenly meditation. Her aunt sat opposite her,
sewing also, with her feet p