During this summer she worked valiantly. She wanted to show the old Sperbers that she could be a good housewife and manager. Although the real responsibility lay upon the bailiff and the housekeeper, she would not altogether let go of the helm. She insisted on knowing everything that was to be done and giving her approval. "The young rascal!" said old Sperber. She was often at their house, getting advice and meeting the young girls and their comrades, whom she had so long thought of and wished to know. Now that she was alone in the world, there was nothing any longer to keep her away from them. There were two daughters of Councillor Kirsten from the Wünschengasse down in Weimar, who, with their friends Bundang, Ernst von Schiller, and Horny, came up to see the old Sperbers and made real festivities of their visits. The old people loved them very dearly, for they knew how to be merry and pleasant and were full of youthful audacity and exuberance that cheered the hearts of the aged couple. [Illustration: WIFE OF A CLAMDIGGER] Beate had never known how to make the good old people smile and laugh in the same way. That hurt her. From her childhood up, there had always been a heavy weight upon her; she had not known what it was to be quite carefree. To her the two girls, Röse and Marie, were something wonderful. Now that she knew she herself was beautiful, she drew nearer to them as one of their own kind, and they welcomed her joyfully. The girl of the Ettersberg, who had always been in the habit of taking flight when they met her by chance at the Sperbers', had long attracted them, especially since their three friends seemed to have so high an opinion of her. "Is it for her mop of red hair that you like her?" the girls asked the young men. "She has something queenly about her," said Horny. "I watched her once, two years ago last autumn, when she lit a fire in the field after the men and women were gone, all by herself, to roast potatoes. I saw her gathering dry weeds and setting fire to them, and laying the potatoes in the hot embers, and then crouching down looking into the glowing fire, lonely and full of thoughts. I was hidden in the wood, and I had to press my hands over my mouth to keep from crying out, so much her loneliness affected me, and her making the fire all by herself and taking her ease there in the solitude of the woods. Then she ate some of the potatoes, quite simply, like a young animal that had been deserted; and, you may believe me or not as you please, but tears ran down my cheeks. The fields and all around were so big and wide and gray and cool. Her fire, and she herself, seemed to me the only tiny living point in all the gray mist. I knew, too, that she had no mother. Then I saw her go, gravely and silently, along the path toward her home. I shall never forget that picture."