He was a good, wholesome fellow. But all the neighbors in the country round, on the Ettersberg and behind the Ettersberg, in Weimar and the suburbs, thought as did the old Sperbers: It isn't the thing for a slip of a silly girl to be alone on the farm like that. Each thought of a nephew, a brother, a son or some other relative who might be launched, on the chase of the rare wild creature--all the while that the young girl was enjoying in fullest measure her freedom and her youth. In spite of them all, she lived very peacefully and properly, knowing how to make herself felt as mistress for all the bailiff and housekeeper were there; all she did was well and diligently done. But presently there broke loose what the old people in their zeal had wished--a flood of suitors. The lovely youthful peace of the three queens and their good friends was disturbed. Such new, wonderful youth must first become conscious of itself before it can pass on to longings and desires. The three sensible elders would have better let the three queens go on quietly with their delightful dances--first to the right, then to the left, until they were weary. They will never have such dances again--never in their lives. The first suitors who presented themselves were the two boarders of the pretty little widow with the heart-shaped face, Herr Oehmchen and Herr Leinhose. They paid a visit to the Sperbers, but not together; neither knew of the other's intention. They did not venture to go directly to the Rauchfuss farm; the thing was to be conducted with utmost propriety. "Hallo!" thought Herr Sperber. "The thing must be getting serious when such settled gentlemen put themselves in motion." Herr Sperber did not fly too high in his ambitions for his protégée. "A plain fellow like that is the best for a woman of her sort," he thought to himself; "then there won't be any such business as there was with Herr Rauchfuss. Such a chap hasn't anything particular to show off before the world, no red beard, no giant's stature, no whimsies in the brain, no big heart, no wit--just an average fellow that'll settle down and keep quiet." Herr Sperber received both the gentlemen in a very friendly fashion. The nephew, of course, would cut them out--but that was his affair. Beate, who was invited one evening to meet the nephew and the other two at her old friends', enjoyed the astonished admiration of the three like a delicious confection--or rather like a sweet perfume that she breathed in. "Men are drunk with me," she thought again, and was proud and happy. Although the two boarders and the nephew were quite sufficiently wearisome in their enamored state, she was not bored; she was only conscious of herself and of the incense of sacrifice which arose under her nostrils and seemed to invigorate her. The three men were alike indifferent to her; they were only the vessels in which the incense was burnt.