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SKETCHES. 293
Grandmother was sitting in the boudoir telling fortunes
out of her cards; I wandered about with noiseless steps
upon the carpet in the large drawing-room next to it.
The candle in the chandelier threw a romantic twilight
over the room, and the hyacinths in the window filled
it with summer fragrance. I glanced now and then at
the large pier-glass, and thought that I looked very well,
and that some one might like, or even fall in love with a
girl who looked so. Occasionally, also, I peeped through
the window, spying for the expected visitor.
Our house was situated in a square, so that I had an
open prospect. Opposite to me, in the corner of the street,
a lamp was burning, and almost straight under it was
hanging a large, red wooden hand, with the fore-finger
stretched out; a dyer’s sign. The finger pointed at every
person that passed under the lamp ; that is to say, when it
did not move, for every now and then it was swung back-
wards and forwards by the wind. It was snowing, and the
snow-flakes were falling round about the red hand in the
lamplight. There now, it is still, and the large finger is
pointing at a figure. I fancy it is a little like that figure
which I first thought of. I wonder whether he will come
here? No, he turns off to the left. I dare say it was not
he. I continue to walk up and down the room. “ After all
life flies so quickly ; it is best to make a person happy, if
we can do so, and be happy through his happiness. The
perfect is not man’s lot, and least of all woman’s. They
have so little choice, and so little liberty. It is best to take
moderate happiness when it is offered to us, and” — again I
look through the window. The snow falls. The lamplight
is flickering. ‘The hand swings to the wind; now it is still
again, pointing at a figure, surely the second one! How
my heart is beating! He walks straight up to our house.
How could I think of the first one? May he never come!
The second one, the right one, is coming. Him, him alone,
can I love. He comes; he enters the gate; ascends the
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