Page:Stories by Foreign Authors (Scandinavian).djvu/50

42 plainer. Again the horizon widely around was rose-colored, and between the tinted cloud-layers angel-heads peeped out—not Bible angels, which are neither man nor woman; but angelic girls, whom he didn't know, and who didn't know him. The truth was, he didn't know anybody to whom he could give his heart, but longed, with a certain twenty-four-year power, for her to whom he could offer it,—her who was worthy to receive his whole self-made being, and in exchange give him all that queer imagined bliss, which is or ought to be in the world, as every one so firmly believes.

"Oh, I am a fool!" he said, as he suddenly became conscious that he was merely dreaming and wishing. He tried to think of something practical, thought upon a little picnic that was to be held in the evening; but the same dream returned and overpowered him, because the season of spring was in him, because life thrilled in him as in trees and plants when the spring sun shines.

He leaned upon the window-seat—it was in an attic—and let the wind cool his forehead. But while the wind refreshed, the street itself gave his mind new nourishment. Down there it moved, to him unknown, and veiled and hidden as at a masquerade. What a treasure might not that easy virgin foot carry! What a fancy might there not be moving in the head under that little bonnet, and what a heart might there not be