On a day like that, too, he once arranged for a dance, it being the first of May. He had a musician fetched from town, and got likewise some merry young folks to increase the sport. And there was dancing aplenty on the smooth greensward in front of the house, right under the blooming trees, and dainty dancing it was. The chief forester opened the merriment with his smiling young wife, she in her modest finery and with her girlish shape. As they made the first steps, she looked over her shoulder at the youngsters, happy as could be, and tipping her foot on the green sod, impatient to be off. Just then Dietegen, who for much of the time past had kept to the men entirely, threw a glance at Kuengolt, and lo! he saw that she also was growing up to be a handsome woman, as pretty a picture as her mother. Her features indeed strongly resembled those of her mother, small, regular and charming. But in her figure she took more after her father, for she was trimly built like a straight young pine, and although but fourteen her bosom was already rounded like that of a grown-up damsel. Golden curls fell in a shower down her back and hid the somewhat angular shoulderblades. She was clad all in green, wore around her neck her amber beads, and on her head, according to the fashion of those days, a wreath of rosebuds. Her eyes shone pleasantly and frankly from a guileless face, but once in a while they would flash wilfully and glide casually over the row of youths whose eyes hung on her youthful beauty, with a slightly critical bent, and at last rest for an instant on Dietegen, then turn away again. Dietegen looked as though hungering for recognition, but she only once more glanced back at him. But that glance seemed to have somewhat embarrassed her, for she stopped to arrange her hair, while he flushed deeply. That indeed was the first time when they two felt they were no longer mere children. But a few minutes later they met and found themselves partners in a country dance, hand in hand. A new and sweet sensation pulsed through his veins, and this remained even after the ring of dancers had again been broken. Kuengolt, however, had still the same feeling regarding him; she looked upon the youth as upon something all her own, as something belonging to her, and of which, therefore, one may be sure and need not guard closely. Only once in a while she would send a spying glance in his direction, and when accident would bring him into the close neighborhood of another maiden, there would also be Kuengolt watching him.