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294 SKETCHES.
staircase; soon he will be in the hall! “ Dear grand-
mother, we shall have a visitor! Shall we not receive
him?” “Yes, of course; have I not seen it in the cards?
Who is he?”
“T think it is ———; I am not quite sure, though.” Strange
that he should take such a long time in walking up-stairs. ,
His steps are otherwise so lively; so is also his manner of
grasping the door-handle. I know it well. Now—no,
it was the wind. Minute after minute glides away. No-
body comes. I must have made a mistake in the person.
That visit was not intended for my home.
There is a covered sledge, with tinkling bells, driving
right up to our house. Oh! if it were she! JI open the
gates of my heart; she shall drive into it. And were she
covered with snow, and congealed to ice, she shall there be
welcome and warm. ‘The sledge stops! No, it drives
past our door. It was not she!
The minutes fly; now the clock strikes a quarter to nine.
It begins to get late for ordinary visitors. But some
extraordinary visitor might yet come. The genius, for
instance; he measures neither time nor hours. Je is
extraordinary. See there! Does not the red hand point
at a figure in a cloak, just like his cloak? It is him; my
friend, the genius; the immortal man; and I shall see him,
and feel my heart beat for immortal feelings and thoughts.
How grand! how splendid life can be! Yes, but how nar-
row, poor, and empty also. It must not have been he, the
genius, my friend. He could not have passed by my home,
as that cloak has done.
It strikes nine. The footman enters with the supper for
grandmammaand me. Grandmammasips her milk-posset,
and I my tea. We eat and drink in silence. My heart
does not now beat so loudly. It is not probable that my
friend will call now; and an enemy, or a thief, or a robber
— that would be moderately pleasant, comparatively at least.
The supper is carried out. Grandmamma is again at her
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