And so it came about, without the consciousness of the dear old people, or of the child herself, that she became the angel of the household, about whom everything turned, turned joyfully, without grumbling or snarling, without clashing or force. As she in her simple dress, with a little silk handkerchief tied around her neck, her fresh cheeks, and unbound, floating hair, went dancing up and down in her glee, she was a living spring of joy to the whole house; and when she sat still beside her foster-father, and learned, and looked at him with her great eyes, as if there must be something still more beautiful to come, and at last with a deep sigh closed the book, as if it were a pity that it was all done, and yet at the same time good that it was all done, because the little heart could hold no more,--then the Frau Pastorin stole up behind her, in stocking feet, with her dusting-cloth under her apron, and her slippers lying at the door. "For," said she, "teaching children is a different thing from making sermons; the old people are only affected now and then when one hits them right hard with hell-torments; but a child's soul,--one must touch that merely with a tulip-stalk, and not with a fence-pole!" Habermann's little daughter was always fair, but she looked the fairest when, a step in advance, she held her father by the hand, and brought him into the parsonage yard, where the good people sat under the great linden; then shone out all the virtues which usually sleep quietly in the human heart, and only now and then come to the light of day,--love and gratitude, joy and pride,--from her sprightly face; and, if Habermann walked beside her silent and half-sad that he could do so little for his child, one could read in her eyes a sort of festal joy, as if she thought to discharge all the debt of gratitude which she owed her good foster-parents, by bringing to them her father. She was just entering her thirteenth year and her young heart took no reckoning of her feelings and actions, never in her life had she asked herself why her father was so dear to her. It was otherwise with the Pastor and his wife, there she was daily conscious how kind and good were their intentions toward her, and she had daily opportunities of repaying their love by little acts of duty and friendliness. But here--she knew merely it was her father; he spoke often to her words that must come from his heart, and he looked at her with such quiet, sad looks, that must go to her heart. Reckoning up all they had done, these good people had deserved more from her; but yet--the Lord must have knit these human threads very closely together, up above, they run into each other so, and cannot be separated.