n mortal agony
fluttered over the threshold of the door that leads from life to death.

The summer after her father's death seemed to bring a wonderful
blossoming-time to the young girl. That was a summer! No long rainy
spells--now and then a heavy storm bursting over the old Ettersberg;
showers in the night, and fresh, dewy, sunny mornings--such a summer,
in short, as one might have dreamed of.

The burden of life had fallen from the girl; she fairly bloomed and
glowed. "There's one up here that'll turn many a head," said old
Sperber. "God only knows what that girl will do before she's through.
If she only hadn't that cursed red hair ... but she runs about like a
blazing torch, and everybody that sees her takes after her, down to the
very farmboy!"

She lived like a queen up on the hill, although the old Sperbers
growled and blamed her for doing what she thought best and staying in
her father's house, instead of moving over to theirs and letting the
farm out.

Since that evening at the widow's, when the dry voices of the boarders
had transformed themselves into the melting tones of tenderness and
care, tones that they hardly recognized themselves, she had known that
she was beautiful and possessed power over men. That night, when the
two men had left her at her own door, the lonely girl had opened her
window and gazed out into the huge darkness and silence. Her heart beat
as if it would break; her warm blood glowed through her skin. A miracle
had happened! Men were drunk with her beauty, drunk with joy of her.
She thanked God, and pressed her clasped hands to her bosom, full of
amazed happiness. She could not tear herself away from the peaceful
stillness that filled her with its own splendor.

The fact that poor Frau Marianne's two boarders were after all but
miserable specimens of manhood did not affect her. She had seen them
grow drunk with joy. That filled her with emotion all day long and
hallowed her in her own eyes. In this glorious summer, in which the
burden of life had fallen from her, she expanded and grew increasingly
beautiful through her own happiness. As a child she had envied the
flowers for their beauty--and now she knew that she herself was
beautiful. She possessed a sure and abiding joy. It was well for her
that she was conscious of her beauty. Death she had known, and utter
loneliness, and patient endurance. When she was a child, they had
called her "little fox" and "red-head;" now she noticed