And Miss Dimpleton again relapsed into long and hearty laughter. Rudolph, struck with this blind, yet happy confidence in the future, reproached himself with having attempted to shake it. He thought, with horror, that an illness of a month could ruin this merry, peaceful mode of existence. Miss Dimpleton's deep faith in her health and her eighteen years, her only treasures, appeared to Rudolph something akin to holiness; for, on the young girl's part, it was neither carelessness nor improvidence, but an instinctive reliance on the commiseration of Divine justice, which could not abandon an industrious and virtuous creature, whose only error was a too confident dependence on the youth and health she enjoyed. The birds, as they cleave with gay and agile wings the azure skies in spring, or skim lightly over the blooming fields, do they think of the cheerless winter?
"Then," said Rudolph to the grisette, "you are not ambitious to possess more than you have?"
"Nothing."
"Absolutely nothing?"
"No—that is to say, I should like to have my chimney-ornaments, and I shall have them, though I do not know when; but I have it in my head to possess them, and I will, if I should have to sit up to work all night to do it."
"And besides these ornaments—"
"I want for nothing; I cannot recollect a single thing more that I care about possessing now."
"How now?"
"Because, if you had asked me the same question yesterday, I should have told you I was longing for a suitable neighbor; so that I could arrange with him comfortably, as I have always done, to perform little services for him, that he might return nice little attentions to me."
"Well, it is already agreed, my pretty neighbor, that you shall take charge of my linen, and that I shall clean your room—without naming your waking me early in the morning, by tapping at the wall."