During the first year of co-working Loretz devoted himself to the culture of the willow, and then, as time passed on and hands were needed, he brought one family after another to the place--Moravians all--until now there were at least five hundred inhabitants in Spenersberg, a large factory and a church, whereof Spener himself was a member "in good and regular standing." Seven years of incessant labor, directed by a wise foresight, which looked almost like inspiration and miracle, had resulted in all this real prosperity. Loretz never stopped wondering at it, and yet he could have told you every step of the process. All that had been _done_ he had had a hand in, but the devising brain was Spener's; and no wonder that, in spite of his familiarity with the details, the sum-total of the activities put forth in that valley should have seemed to Loretz marvelous, magical. He had many things to rejoice over besides his own prosperity. His daughter was in all respects a perfect being, to his thinking. For six years now she had been under the instruction of Sister Benigna, not only in music, but in all things that Sister Benigna, a well-instructed woman, could teach. She sang, as Leonhard Marten would have told you, "divinely," she was beautiful to look upon, and Albert Spener desired to marry her. Surely the Lord had blessed him, and remembered no more those years of wanderings when, alienated from the brethren, he sought out his own ways and came close upon destruction. What should he return to the beneficent Giver for all these benefits? Poor Loretz! In his prosperity he thought that he should never be moved, but he would not basely use that conviction and forget the source of all his satisfaction. He remembered that it was when he repented of his misdeeds that Spener came to him and drew him from the pit. He could never look upon Albert as other than a divine agent; and when Spener joined himself to the Moravians, led partly by his admiration of them, partly by religious impulse, and partly because of his conviction that to be wholly successful he and his people must form a unit, his joy was complete. The proposal for Elise's hand had an effect upon her father which any one who knew him well might have looked for and directed. The pride of his life was satisfied. He remembered that he and his Anna, in seeking to know the will of the Lord in respect to their marriage, had been answered favorably by the lot. He desired the signal demonstration of heavenly will in regard to the nuptials proposed. Not a shadow of a doubt visited his mind as to the result, and the influence of his faith upon Spener was such that he acquiesced in the measure, though not without remonstrance and misgiving and mental reservation.