But Dietegen did not pay her back in her own coin, never lost his patience with her, and was always equally submissive and indulgent with her. Her mother saw that with vast pleasure, and to reward him for his fine conduct she treated the boy like her own son, and gave him all those finer hints and that almost imperceptible guidance and advice which else are only saved for children of one's own, and by means of which children finally acquire without knowing it those habits and better manners which are commonly comprised under the name of a careful education. Of course, she herself gained in a way from this; for her own daughter thus acquired unconsciously many of her lessons, Dietegen being there as a sort of mirror of what was expected of her. Truly, it was almost comical how little Kuengolt in her restless temperament veered and shifted constantly between imitating her better model or else becoming jealous and wroth and scorning it for the time. On one occasion she became so excited as to stab at him with all her might with a sharp pair of scissors. But Dietegen caught her wrist quickly, and without hurting her or showing any anger he made her drop them. This little scene which her mother had espied from a hiding-place, moved the latter so strongly that she came forth, took the boy in her arms, and kissed him. Pale and excited the girl herself left the room with out a word. "Go, follow her, my son," whispered the mother, "and reconcile her. You are her good angel." Dietegen did as bidden. He found her behind the house and under a lilac bush. She was weeping wildly and tearing her amber necklace, trying, in fact, to throttle herself by means of it, and stamping on the scattered beads on the ground. When Dietegen approached her and wanted to seize her hands, she cried with a great sob: "Nobody but I may kiss you. For you belong to me alone. You are mine, my property. I alone have freed you from that horrid coffin, in which without me you would have remained forever."