A friend of mine once had such a billet blown to her,
and she presented me with it."
"Does one give such things away? Have you the billet?"
"I will look for it," answered Miss Hjelm; and surely enough,
after longer search in the sewing-table, in drawers, and small
boxes, than was really necessary, she found it. Miss Brandt read
it, taking care not to remark that it very much appeared to her as
if it resembled the one the counsellor had mentioned.
"And such a billet one gives away!" she said after a pause.
"Yes: will you have it?" asked Miss Hjelm, as though after a
sudden resolution.
Miss Brandt's first impulse was an eager acceptance; but she
checked herself almost as quickly, and answered:
"Oh, yes, thank you, as a curiosity." Then slowly put it between
her glove and hand.
As Miss Brandt and her company rode away, said Miss Hjelm's
cousin, a handsome, middle-aged widow, to her:
"How is it, Ingeborg? It appears to me you laugh with one eye and
weep with the other."
"Yes: a soap-bubble has burst for me, and glitters, maybe, for
another."
"You know I seldom understand the sentimental enigmas: can you not
interpret your words?"
"Yes: to-day an illusion has vanished, that had lasted for six
years."
"For six years?" said her cousin, with an inquiring or
sympathizing look. "So it began when you were hardly sixteen
years."
"Now do you believe, that when I was in my sixteenth year I saw an
ideal of a man, and was enamoured of him, and to-day I hear that
he is married.
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