Page:Popular Tales and Romances of the Northern Nations (Volume 2).djvu/26

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14
The Spectre Barber.

his days of prosperity, he had paid little or no attention to the other sex; the chords of his finer feelings had never yet been struck, his senses having been blunted and bewildered by the incessant intoxication of pleasure, in which his companions had kept him.

Now, however, the stormy waves of youthful turbulence were still, and the slightest breeze ruffled the mirror-like surface of his soul. He was enchanted at the sight of the most lovely woman he had ever seen, and immediately gave up his dry meteoreological studies, for a more interesting occupation. He began by questioning his landlord concerning his fair neighbour and her mother, and from him learnt the greater part of what the reader already knows.

He now first felt vexed with himself for his wasteful extravagance, as it had deprived him of the means to provide handsomely for the lovely Mela, which his growing inclination would have prompted him to do. His miserable lodgings now appeared a palace to him, and he would not have exchanged them for the best house in Bremen. He passed all his time