She stole a glance into the looking-glass over the drawers.
Her eyes, were they so very black? The freckles were still there. There was a cure for freckles—but there were not so many as there looked to be; the old glass was so full of spots and holes in the quicksilver.
Mrs. Holman, to her surprise, saw Silla standing and rubbing, breathing on and polishing the mirror. Her daughter must have been seized with a new zeal.
On the evening of the third day of the fair, Nikolai strolled up to the factory district by lamplight.
He had been fairing on his own account, and had bought a workbox as a surprise for Silla—one with looking-glass inside the lid—and this afternoon he had put some mounting and a nice lock upon it.
He could surely in some way succeed in meeting her and showing it to her—so easily and with such a spring the lock went! And scissors and needle case he had put inside. She should have the key in her own keeping, and he would keep the box.
He had tied it in a handkerchief and put two cakes on the top, so that the person who could guess that it was anything but a workman's bundle that he was carrying would be more than clever.
He passed close beneath his mother's windows where there was a light, and peeped in to see if Silla might happen to be standing at the counter, and then strolled about indifferently up and down the streets.
It was so strangely deserted and empty here this evening.
And, look as he would through the gate and the paling, it was not possible for him to discover a light in Mrs. Holman's window.