He, too, was so charmed by her appearance and manner that his first embarrassment soon vanished, especially after she had requested him not to call her Baroness, but simply Frau Spielberg, and had thanked him for the hospitality extended to her here. So comfortable an abode for old women--to whose number she herself would soon belong--could scarcely be found in the whole Mark, and she begged to be allowed to stay until she had decided how to shape her future life. But, as she could remain nowhere without bestowing on her environments the impress of her own nature, the burgomaster at his first visit marveled at the changed appearance of the almshouse and its inmates. The seven old dames, who had formerly crept about in forlorn tatters, with their thin hair hanging over their brows, and lines of discontent on their faces--nay, sometimes bearing tokens of very unchristian deeds, the result of their quarrels--suddenly appeared transformed into neat, civil matrons, for they had noticed that they did not please their mistress unless they appeared with clean faces and carefully mended dresses. Even the building itself had changed. The corridors and rooms were spick and span from scouring, and strewed with clean sand. The most beautiful of all was the garden, a narrow strip of ground beneath the low windows. Without saying much about it, Frau Luise one day dug with her own hands the patch below her own window, divided it into small beds, and planted some flowers she had asked me to get for her. Her old guard had scarcely seen this ere they became possessed with an ambition to imitate the noble lady, and, as the latter willingly helped them with seeds and young plants, the wilderness, in which formerly nothing but nettles and weeds of all kinds had flourished, was transformed into a gay garden, and under each window stood a small, rudely made bench, painted with cheap green paint, on which every leisure evening one of the old crones sat in the sunset glow with the everlasting knitting in her lap. I had ordered Frau Luise's bench to be made somewhat larger, so that there was room for a slender person by her side. There I sat many an hour, often with a book from which I read aloud to her, or talking cheerfully and earnestly about God and the world, not infrequently recalling memories of the beloved child, whose smallest trait of character had not been forgotten by either of us. His father's name was never mentioned. I only knew that he was still dragging out his useless existence in some foreign land.