Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 097.djvu/84

74 maintenance, and she has an invalid mother to support. What prospect is there of any change in her circumstances? What good fortune has she to hope for in the future? She throws herself hack in the lounging-chair, closes her eyes, and begins—to dream.

Ah! who does not know what happy miracles take place in dreams? Real joys are seldom the growth of this world, and are only found by a few; but to compensate for their absence, by the bounty of Providence, a reflection of them is permitted to all mankind; for fancy may, for an instant, bestow that happiness which never can be realised. The pleasures of imagination are open to all; in dreams we may taste of felicity, and surely none are so wretched as never in fancy to have known a moment of consolation and comfort.

Lisette is smiling; she is not asleep, but she has closed her eyes, the better to enjoy her little world of phantasies and dreams. Her situation in life is altered. She is no longer the poor Lisette who must toil from day to day to supply her urgent wants, and whose wardrobe consists only of two or three dresses, a shawl, and a coarse straw hat. Oh, no; it is far different! She need no longer exert herself so much, and is no longer obliged to rise with the swallow, whose nest is near her window. She has bought silk dresses, a pretty bonnet, and a fashionable shawl. She has been to Charlottenlund; has heard the band at Frederiksberg; and wandered in the woods with her young friends. What magic has suddenly wrought this change in her destiny? She dreams it; and who would recal her from the harmless enjoyment of her vivid waking visions? Lisette delights in the theatre; she has been there twice in her life, and has seen the "Elverhöi" and "King Solomon;" but she knows all the opera and vaudeville airs by heart, and sings them like an angel. She has just settled that she will take a box for the season, when she hears a knock at the door. "Come in!" she exclaims, languidly; and this time it is no false alarm, for a waiting-maid walks in with a parcel and a bandbox. Lisette is somewhat annoyed at the interruption; however, she rises and asks what is wanted. The maid brings an old bonnet to be re-trimmed for her mistress, and orders a new one for herself, which she desires may be ready by the next Sunday, when she is going out, and will call for it. She dares not let her mistress see it; but her lover, the mate of a ship trading to China, insists on her being nicely dressed. He has presented her with a china-crape shawl, which she begs may be allowed to remain at Lisette's until the important Sunday.

As she is leaving the room the clock strikes eight, and Lisette suddenly remembers that she has not watered the rosebush, which was given her by Ludvig. What shameful carelessness! She hastens to perform the pleasing task: that in doing this her glance falls upon the pavement below, and that at the same moment the handsome hussar officer. Lieutenant W, is passing by—surely must be the work of chance. He bows—it must be to the family of the Councillor of State in the lower story, not to the inhabitant of the poor garret up at the roof of the house. He casts a look up towards heaven, and sees a heaven in Lisette's beautiful eyes. Perhaps he was watching the clouds, and thinking of the weather; but his eyes sparkled like the beam of the noonday sun, or like two very bright stars. He lifts his hand to his military cap—how elegant are his movements! What a pretty compliment to pass unnoticed! Unnoticed? If so, what means that deep blush on Lisette's