take at least three stares to know me. Also, my
costume would disguise me from the few acquaintances I had in Paris
(if they chanced to cross the Seine), as they had only seen me in the
shabbiest; while, at my last meeting with Antonio, I had been as fine in
the coat as now.

Yet my encouragement was not so joyful that my gaze lifted often. On
the very last day, in the afternoon when my observances were most and
noisiest, I lifted my eyes but once during the final half-hour--but such
a one that was!

The edge of that beautiful grey pongee skirt came upon the lid of my
lowered eyelid like a cool shadow over hot sand. A sergent had just made
many of the people move away, so there remained only a thin ring of
the laughing pantaloons about me, when this divine skirt presented its
apparition to me. A pair of North-American trousers accompanied it,
turned up to show the ankle-bones of a rich pair of stockings; neat,
enthusiastic and humorous, I judged them to be; for, as one may
discover, my only amusement during my martyrdom--if this misery can
be said to possess such alleviatings--had been the study of feet,
pantaloons, and skirts. The trousers in this case detained my
observation no time. They were but the darkest corner of the chiaroscuro
of a Rembrandt--the mellow glow of gold was all across the grey skirt.

How shall I explain myself, how make myself understood? Shall I be
thought sentimentalistic or but mad when I declare that my first
sight of the grey pongee skirt caused me a thrill of excitation, of
tenderness, and--oh-i-me!--of self-consciousness more acute than all my
former mortifications. It was so very different from all other skirts
that had shown themselves to me those sad days, and you may understand
that, though the pantaloons far outnumbered the skirts, many hundreds of
the latter had also been objects of my gloomy observation.

This skirt, so unlike those which had passed, presented at once the
qualifications of its superiority. It had been constructed by an artist,
and it was worn by a lady. It did not pine, it did not droop; there was
no more an atom of hanging too much than there was a portion inflated
by flamboyancy; it did not assert itself; it bore notice without
seeking it. Plain but exquisite, it was that great rarity--goodness made
charming.

The peregrination of the American trousers suddenly stopped as they
caught sight of me, and that precious skirt paused, precisely in
opposition to my