Now and then it even occurred to Lilly that when the lady had been young and fair, she had been the colonel's love. But Lilly dismissed this idea. Miss von Schwertfeger was far too proud to endure the bitterness of such companionship, and _he_ was too dominating to tolerate the presence of such a creditor.
All that Lilly learned of her past was that she was the daughter of a poor yet aristocratic army officer, and had been left an orphan with her own living to earn after her confirmation. She had now been managing the colonel's household for nearly twenty years. The fact that Miss von Schwertfeger, homeless and without resources, like herself, had also been thrown upon the colonel's tender mercies gradually aroused in Lilly a sense of sympathy and kinship, although she could never cast off a slight feeling that she must be on her guard against this woman.
She really owed Miss von Schwertfeger a debt of gratitude. Without her ready advice, Lilly would have fallen innumerable times from the road leading to the lofty heights where she would sit enthroned as aristocrat and lady of a manor. Ridiculers would have taken base advantage of her modesty; her sportive manner of equality would have invited impertinence; she would have ended in losing every vestige of power. Perhaps people would even have come to despise her.
As it was, everybody loved her. She found shining glances to greet her in the kitchen, in the stables, among the villagers, and at the lodge; while in the barn, where the Polish women dwelt behind smouldering brushwood and drying wash, she was a veritable idol.
Whether a rumor had gotten about of her Slavic name, or her Catholicism, could not be determined. However that might be, the fact remained that these strange, despised people, who glided among the stiff and haughty Germans with the humble look of a child in their eyes and the plaintive melodies of their country on their lips, revered Lilly as their redeemer and patron saint.
She liked to busy herself with the gentle, good-natured folk. She visited the sick, and cared for the destitute. The girls seemed to her like poor sisters, who needed watching over; and as for the boys, why, they were a charge that God Himself had put into her keeping.