Prosaic as these journeys may seem, they are nevertheless the inspiration of my hopes, the feeders of my visions.  It is at such times that I enjoy my glimpses of the lady I long to meet.  I jostle gentle creatures at every step:  feminine shapes and feminine tones are on every side presented to eyes and ears.  I trust nobody will be prejudiced against me when I confess that I see the fair one of my dreams in the shop-windows.  Once having seen her, I become immeasurably happy, and go on dreaming about her until we meet again.  It may seem a curious admission, but this beautiful although impalpable being is suggested by the charming dresses, hats and bonnets displayed on the milliners’ blocks.  None of our artists can paint portraits now-a-days:  Art seems to have withdrawn her gifts from them and endowed the dressmakers and milliners instead.

It was at first difficult for me to decide on the personality of my beloved.  My earliest fancy was for a blond:  at least the dress was of pale blue silk with a profusion of lace trimmings.  Her hat was of straw faced with azure velvet, and the crown surrounded by a long plume, also of ciel blue.  I knew by heart the features of this fair young creature, invisible although she was to others.  They seemed to belong more to a flower than to a face:  her eyes were large and blue, full of appealing love; her hair was of course golden; her smile was angelic; and her whole expression was one of sweetness and goodness.  She was my first dream:  little although she belonged to actual life, she used to trip about by my side and sit with me in my room at home.  Suddenly, however, I became enamored of a different creature, and my dream changed.  I began to think of my lovely blond regretfully as of a beautiful creature too good for earth who died young.  It is the habit of the shopkeepers to change the figures in their windows, and one morning I fell in love with quite a different creature.  She wore when I first saw her a long dress of black silk and velvet sparkling with jet; over her shoulders was thrown carelessly a mantle of cream-colored cloth; on her head was a plush hat—­what they call a Gainsborough—­trimmed with a long graceful plume, also of cream-color.  Although only her back was toward me, I knew by instinct exactly what her face was.  She was dark of course, with a low broad forehead, about which clustered little short curls; her eyes were superb, at once laughing and melancholy; her features suggested rather pride than softness; but her smile was enchanting, open, sunny, like a burst of light from behind a cloud.  Nothing could be more real than this vision.  At first the discovery of this magnificently-endowed woman rendered me happy:  I used to walk past the shop half a dozen times a day to look at her.  Her costumes varied, but they always suggested the same dark but brilliant lineaments, the same graceful movements, the same peculiarly lovely tones.  She often looked back at me over her shoulder, but had