And she starts to run away, then stops suddenly, puts her finger to her nose and says: "Wait a minute; I will come across to you." Before he has time to stretch out a helping hand, she had slipped, as nimble as a lizard, in between the boards of the fencing. "Well, here I am," she says, smoothing out her dress, while she lets the knotted kerchief fall loosely onto her neck, so that a mass of little brown curls escape round her forehead and neck and begin to dance in the wind as if delighted at their newly regained freedom. His gaze rests with astonishment on the fresh, girlish beauty of this young wife, who behaves like a wild unconstrained child. She notices the look, and slightly blushing, she passes her hand over the curly disorder which will not be fettered. For a while they walk beside each other in silence. She looks down and smiles as if she too had suddenly learned shyness. Conversation flags till they have got through the large entrance-gate. Johannes looks about and gives a cry of amazement. He cannot believe his eyes. Everything all around is changed, everything is beautified. The round court-yard, which in rainy weather used to be one immense pool of dirt and in dry weather one mass of dust-clouds, now is all covered with turf like some flowering meadow, the doors of the store-houses and stables are resplendent with bright red paint and bear white numbers. In the middle of the open space is an artistic pigeon-house, like a little Swiss chalet, and in front of the house is a newly built veranda, round whose shining windowpanes and dainty wood-carving some young creepers twine their budding tendrils. The mill lies before his ecstatic gaze like the very home of peace and innocence. He folds his hands in emotion and asks "Who has done all this?" She looks about without speaking. "You?" he asks, amazed. "I helped," she answers modestly. "But you originated it?" She smiles. This smile makes her appear older, and for a moment her child-like face is suffused with a shimmer of womanly grace. "Your hand is blessed," he says softly and shyly, more in earnest than is his wont. He cannot help thinking of his dead mother, who so often complained of the dreadful dust, and that in the whole space outside there was not a single place where she could sit down in comfort. "If only she could have lived to see this," he murmurs to himself. "Mother?" she asks him. He looks up astonished. That she should not say "your mother" startles him at first, then it gives him a feeling of intense pleasure such as he has never before in his life felt. A sort of happy glow enters into his heart and will not leave it. So there is now in the world a young, beautiful strange woman who speaks of his mother as if she had been hers too, as if she herself were his sister, the sister he had so often longed for in his foolish younger days, when his gaze used to rest with admiration on other girls. And now she softly repeats her question.