"As--for instance--?"
"While I was still standing, turning to stone at the assertion that Fräulein Flora had already disposed of all her dances, my indignant eye chanced to light upon a face I had overlooked before--perhaps because it could not ogle and grin as some can--and now I saw a pair of large soft eyes pitifully fixed on mine, which seemed to say: 'Why did you never look our way before?--we could have warned you long ago, to beware of icebergs,' &c. &c.--all that eyes can say. So I resolved to be a fool no longer, and I walked across the room, look you, with a dignity--"
"I see!"--she interrupted drily; "I see him, as he walks over half a dozen dresses, turning over as many chairs as he could find in his way."
"Not this time, you unnatural mother, who are always ready to believe the worst of your own son! I tell you, I walked up to Lottchen Klas with the dignity of a prince--"
"Lottchen Klas, is it? A mother's blessing on your choice, my son!" she said with great solemnity. "If this be your first love, it is not of a disquieting nature. This is not likely to prove too absorbing--this will scarcely keep you from better things. I only beg you will put no nonsense into that poor child's head, do you hear?"
"I don't know what you take me for," he said with honest naiveté. "I did not say a word to her that I might not as well have said to a woman of seventy."
"She will have been much edified by your conversation."
"Hm;--" he said; "she began--she seemed to see that I could not be contented to go on poking here, and never be more than a very middling house-painter or decorator--that I had rather do anything, or go anywhere, to get to a proper school, and have an architect's education. How she knew, I can't say, but she began--"
"And you could not leave off, as I know you."
"Of course not, and she didn't want to; she did not find it tiresome; and then, between whiles, we danced; and I never thought I had been so clever at it. You can't think how well she managed to keep me in order; so that we hardly ever got out of time, and got through the quadrille part of the business with only one very small confusion. Ah! she is a sweet creature! and divinely good!--and I really don't believe I ever could find a more suitable opportunity to fall in love. Look here,"--and he pulled out a handful of bows and cotillion badges from his waistcoat: "All these are to be put in the fire. Only this one crimson bow was hers: and this is to be carefully kept, and laid under my pillow to-night, and I am much mistaken if I do not find myself over head and ears in love when I awake in the morning!"