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26 all the curtains had been taken away, and that the rooms were uninhabited; his fair neighbours had left their quarters the evening before in perfect silence.

He was now indeed free to enjoy the fresh air and the view into the narrow street, without offending any body, but this was to him no compensation, for having lost the occasional sight of the dear object of his affections.

When he had a little recovered himself from the first painful shock, this circumstance led him to make many useful reflections. He suspected that he had been the cause of the ladies’ flight. The money he had received, the breaking up of the trade in lint, and now the emigration, all rushed on his mind, and seemed to explain one another. He concluded that mother Brigitta had found out his secret, and that he was far from being her favourite, which did not serve to revive his hopes. The symbolic answers however, which the fair Mela had given, by means of the flowers, to his melodious offers of his heart; her subsequent melancholy, and the tears he had seen her shed shortly before she