Mrs. Hermann, an engaging, stout housewife, wore on board baggy blue dresses with white dots.  When, as happened once or twice I caught her at an elegant little wash-tub rubbing hard on white collars, baby’s socks, and Hermann’s summer neckties, she would blush in girlish confusion, and raising her wet hands greet me from afar with many friendly nods.  Her sleeves would be rolled up to the elbows, and the gold hoop of her wedding ring glittered among the soapsuds.  Her voice was pleasant, she had a serene brow, smooth bands of very fair hair, and a good-humoured expression of the eyes.  She was motherly and moderately talkative.  When this simple matron smiled, youthful dimples broke out on her fresh broad cheeks.  Hermann’s niece on the other hand, an orphan and very silent, I never saw attempt a smile.  This, however, was not gloom on her part but the restraint of youthful gravity.

They had carried her about with them for the last three years, to help with the children and be company for Mrs. Hermann, as Hermann mentioned once to me.  It had been very necessary while they were all little, he had added in a vexed manner.  It was her arm and her sleek head that I had glimpsed one morning, through the stern-windows of the cabin, hovering over the pots of fuchsias and mignonette; but the first time I beheld her full length I surrendered to her proportions.  They fix her in my mind, as great beauty, great intelligence, quickness of wit or kindness of heart might have made some her other woman equally memorable.

With her it was form and size.  It was her physical personality that had this imposing charm.  She might have been witty, intelligent, and kind to an exceptional degree.  I don’t know, and this is not to the point.  All I know is that she was built on a magnificent scale.  Built is the only word.  She was constructed, she was erected, as it were, with a regal lavishness.  It staggered you to see this reckless expenditure of material upon a chit of a girl.  She was youthful and also perfectly mature, as though she had been some fortunate immortal.  She was heavy too, perhaps, but that’s nothing.  It only added to that notion of permanence.  She was barely nineteen.  But such shoulders!  Such round arms!  Such a shadowing forth of mighty limbs when with three long strides she pounced across the deck upon the overturned Nicholas—­it’s perfectly indescribable!  She seemed a good, quiet girl, vigilant as to Lena’s needs, Gustav’s tumbles, the state of Carl’s dear little nose—­conscientious, hardworking, and all that.  But what magnificent hair she had!  Abundant, long, thick, of a tawny colour.  It had the sheen of precious metals.  She wore it plaited tightly into one single tress hanging girlishly down her back and its end reached down to her waist.  The massiveness of it surprised you.  On my word it reminded one of a club.  Her face was big, comely, of an unruffled expression.  She had a good complexion, and her blue eyes were