The young woman took her seat by the window and began to spin. This was the time when they had always been accustomed to discuss the program of the meals for the next day. At supper-time they had thus a double peaceful pleasure, by virtue of their imagination and its creative powers. But this also was missing tonight. She spun and smiled dreamily to herself; and the two boarders at their supper had ceased to exist for her. She was keeping house at the fine farm up on the hillside; she was wandering in spirit through stable and kitchen, she was changing the places of the furniture in the sitting-room to suit her taste, and feeling herself at last in her proper place. Suddenly there resounded at the house-door a loud and peculiar knock. When the little widow reascended the stairs, the boarders heard hesitating footsteps following her. She came in showing some excitement, and after her came a visitor for whom the boarders were not prepared--a childish, red-haired girl. She wore a shawl over her head, half covering her hair; but it overflowed in ringlets and stray strands. The soft figure, neither tall nor short, the tender, rosy countenance, the sharply-marked dark eyebrows, all these made the apparition which remained silently at the door so visionary and remarkable that Herr Oehmchen and Herr Leinhose stopped with their mouths full to stare. But the fair apparition did not move, and stared at the two men in helpless confusion. "Why, Mamsell Rauchfuss," said the little woman with the heart-shaped face, "to what do I owe the pleasure ...?" The strange creature did not answer, but kept on staring. Evidently she was struggling with something that she wanted to say and could not. "Oh, but won't you sit down, Mamsell?" said Herr Leinhose, pulling up a chair to the table. "Tell me, for heaven's sake, what has happened!" cried the widow in a faint voice. Then the strange being sat down on the chair, threw her arms out desperately on the table, buried her face in them, and began to sob. The widow laid a soothing hand on her shoulder. "Oh, don't marry my father!" came out passionately and yet with a tender sound like a breath of spring from between the sobs. "It would be such a pity for you!" The girl now gave free rein to her tears. "But who is thinking of any such thing?" asked the little widow, much annoyed. "Yes, you are--you are! And so is my father--I know it! For heaven's sake, don't! You've no idea how wretched it is up there." Her sobs were so wild and unrestrained that it seemed she had been damming them up for years, and now it was like the breaking loose of a torrent in the spring. "I was so afraid that I ran all the way down--I just had to tell you! It would have been a great sin if I hadn't. If you only knew how sad my poor mother always was, and how sadly--how sadly--she died!"