She talked with pauses, gave me these thrusts at short intervals, and spun it out to make it clearer and clearer that it was me she meant. "Quiet," said I to myself; "only keep quiet!" She had not asked me to go—not expressly, not in plain words. Just no putting on side on my part—no untimely pride! Brave it out! . . . That was really most singular green hair on that Christ in the oleograph. It was not too unlike green grass, or expressed with exquisite exactitude thick meadow grass. Ha! a perfectly correct remark—unusually thick meadow grass. . . . A train of fleeting ideas darts at this moment through my head. From green grass to the text, Each life is like unto grass that is kindled; from that to the Day of Judgment, when all will be consumed; then a little detour down to the earthquake in Lisbon, about which something floated before me in reference to a brass Spanish spitoon and an ebony pen handle that I had seen down at Ylajali's. Ah, yes, all was transitory, just like grass that was kindled. It all ended in four planks and a winding-sheet. "Winding-sheets to be had from Miss Andersen's, on the right of the door." . . . And all this was tossed about
