glow, the eyes sparkled, and he walked on air. Beate
opened her eyes wide.

"That's fine, Frau Marianne!" cried Herr Rauchfuss. "You've actually
taken this long sunny walk in order to be a little company for my poor
girl. I appreciate it, I can tell you!"

The young girl looked anxiously at her father and the guest. What was
this new idea of providing company for her? She had long been used to
loneliness in her upland home. It was true, she had often wished that
the Kirsten girls and their friends whom she met at the sewing-school
and now and then at the Sperbers' would come up and see her; but then
the thought came ... suppose they were to see her father as she often
saw him--and the desire for company went out.

But Beate's loneliness had been a wonderfully strenuous loneliness.
Like a little wild animal she had lived in the shady garden, had slept
under the trees or out in the full sunlight, and dug and planted and
run about through field and wood without any one questioning her
movements. When it was time to work, she had stoutly lent a hand, at
sowing-time or harvest, in stable and dairy, in the orchard and the
vegetable-garden. The men and maids all respected her, and said, "Just
see how she takes hold of everything, as sensibly as a grown-up
person!"

And in winter she scarcely missed companions of her own age and kind;
in the big servants' hall there was always something interesting to
listen to--things were called by their right names, and a rough world
grew up before her mind in which even the ghosts were of a concrete and
tangible nature. In the servants' hall the atmosphere was fairly clean
as regards jokes and silly stories. Like a child of the people, she
soon knew all about love, but without any desire to experience it.
There was nothing mysterious and alluring about it for her; it was a
thing that had to be, like sowing and reaping, like life and death. For
her there was no veil over the phenomena of the world, not even death.
All was as it was, and must be accepted.

And so the relation between her father and the guest struck her at once
as peculiar. In the servants' hall they had more than once tried to
tease her by telling her that her father would some day bring a
stepmother home to her. And now she thought, "Is this the one?"

She found the newcomer beautiful: her daintiness, her pleasant smile,
her dark, well-arranged locks, all charmed her. In fact, the young
woman seemed a wonder to her b