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282 She talked with pauses, gave me these thrusts at short intervals, and spun it out to make it clearer and clearer that it was me she meant. "Quiet," said I to myself; "only keep quiet!" She had not asked me to go—not expressly, not in plain words. Just no putting on side on my part—no untimely pride! Brave it out! That was really most singular green hair on that Christ in the oleograph. It was not too unlike green grass, or expressed with exquisite exactitude thick meadow grass. Ha! a perfectly correct remark—unusually thick meadow grass A train of fleeting ideas darts at this moment through my head. From green grass to the text, Each life is like unto grass that is kindled; from that to the Day of Judgment, when all will be consumed; then a little detour down to the earthquake in Lisbon, about which something floated before me in reference to a brass Spanish spitoon and an ebony pen handle that I had seen down at Ylajali's. Ah, yes, all was transitory, just like grass that was kindled. It all ended in four planks and a winding-sheet. "Winding-sheets to be had from Miss Andersen's, on the right of the door." And all this was tossed about