But as he crossed the farm-yard, he vowed that coy and capricious girls were the most intolerable creatures he knew. The thing was that he did not feel at all satisfied with the upshot of the day. Not that he for a moment doubted that she loved him; but, just on that account, he thought her coldness and reserve doubly annoying. She had never once thrown the ring to him; she had never once singled him out in the cotillion; and on the way home she had talked to every one but him. But he would adopt a different policy the next time; she should soon come to repent that day.
He slipped quietly into the house, so that his uncle might not hear how late he was. In order to reach his own and his brother’s bedroom he had to pass through a long attic. A window in this attic was used by the young men as a door through which to reach a sort of balcony, formed by the canopy over the steps leading into the garden.
Cousin Hans noticed that this window was standing open; and out upon the balcony, in the clear moonlight, he saw his brother’s figure.
Ola still wore his white dancing-gloves; he held on to the railing with both hands, and stared the moon straight in the face.
Cousin Hans could not understand what his brother was doing out there at that time of night; and least of all could he understand what had induced him to put a flower-pot on his head.
“He must be drunk,” thought Hans, approaching him warily.
Then he heard his brother muttering something about a quadrille and a galop; after which he began to make some strange motions with his hands.
Cousin Hans received the impression that he was trying to snap his fingers; and presently Ola said, slowly, and clearly, in his monotonous and unsympathetic speaking voice: “Hope’s clad in April green—trommelommelom, trommelommelom;” you see, poor fellow, he could not sing.