order, and with every detail. First then comes the
fair, then the auburn, then the dark one; or how do they follow in
age?"

"I don't know."

"Well, then we will arrange them according to size, and begin with the
smallest. Is it the auburn haired young lady?"

"I really cannot tell."

"You seem to have employed your time badly, or was it the triple
fascination which had such power over your feelings from the first,
that your senses left you?"

"Certainly I cannot excuse myself on that score," he replied laughing.
"I do not remember a more disagreeable sensation than I had yesterday
on my way to L----. A visit to the dentist is a pleasure trip compared
to it. Several times I was on the point of jumping out of the carriage,
but then I reflected that my cousin's horses would soon have overtaken
me, and then I should have been delivered over ignominiously into the
hands of my evil destiny. For on this point, my friend, who is in every
other respect so yielding, knows no mercy. So I plucked up courage, and
thinking over all the evil that had ever befallen me in the course of
my life I tried to find comfort by repeating that in fact it all
amounted very much to the same thing. At last we arrived. I had
stipulated from the beginning that my cousin should not say a word of
my real purpose, either to the father, or to the young ladies. The
doctor was not at home when we first arrived, so we only found the
sisters of fate in the neatest of dresses, fresh and charming like
three rose buds on one stalk. Yes in truth they equalled the three
graces, and their manners too were far from being provincial. I could
not tire of looking at them."

"The beginning seems promising."

"When they perceived us, they left their several domestic occupations,
and ran to meet my cousin. Then arose a delightful trio of merry
girlish voices around us. Of course my share of their words, and looks
of greeting, was at first only what civility demanded, and I was quite
contented with this, as it gave me a good opportunity of quietly
observing them. When I first entered the room, and perceived the dark
haired young lady, who looked up from her work with large and wondering
eyes, I said to myself; This is the one, I always had a prediliction
for dark hair. The next moment however, I again wavered at the sight of
the fair haired one, whose voice is as clear as a bird's, and her skin
as white as the cherry blossom. Then the auburn haired one entered,