Page:Tales of two countries.djvu/182

168 He looked about him diligently, and closely observed his own heart.

Like a fisher who sits with his line around his forefinger, watching for the least jerk, and wondering when the bite will come, so Cousin Hans held his breath whenever he saw a young lady, wondering whether he was now to feel that peculiar jerk which is well known to be inseparable from true love—that jerk which suddenly makes all the blood rush to the heart, and then sends it just as suddenly up into the head, and makes your face flush red to the very roots of your hair. But never a bite came. His hair had long ago flushed red to the roots, for Cousin Hans's hair could not be called brown; but his face remained as pale and as long as ever.

The poor fisherman was growing quite weary, when he one day strolled down to the esplanade. He seated himself on a bench and observed, with a contemptuous air, a squad of soldiers engaged in the invigorating exercise of standing on one leg in the full sunshine and wriggling their bodies so as to be roasted on both sides.

"Nonsense!" said Cousin Hans, indignantly; "it's certainly too dear a joke for a little country like ours to maintain acrobats of that sort. Didn't I see the other day that this so-called army requires 1500 boxes of shoe-blacking, 600 curry-combs, 3000 yards of gold-lace and 8640 brass buttons?—