man probably young. Further than this it was impossible to
conjecture. Thus I made the rough guess that a young man and his wife,
a child, and a mother-in-law were among the inhabitants of this idyllic
cottage.

But the clothes-line presented charming evidence of still another
occupant; and here, though so far easy to read, came in something of a
puzzle. Who in this humble out-of-the-way cottage could afford to wear
that exquisite cambric petticoat edged with a fine and very expensive
lace? And surely it was on no country legs that those delicately
clocked and open-worked silk stockings walked invisible through the
world.

Nor was the lace any ordinary expensive English lace, such as any good
shop can supply. Indeed, I recognised it as being of a Parisian design
as yet little known in England; while on the tops of the stockings I
laughingly suspected a border designed by a certain eccentric artist,
who devotes his strange gifts to decorating with fascinating miniatures
the under-world of woman. I have seen corsets thus made beautiful by
him valued at five hundred pounds, and he never paints a pair of
garters for less than a hundred. His name is not yet a famous one, as,
for obvious reasons, his works are not exhibited at public galleries,
though they are occasionally to be seen at private views.

I am far from despising an honest red-flannel country petticoat. There
is no warmer kinder-looking garment in the world. It suggests country
laps and country breasts, with sturdy country babes greedy for the warm
white milk, and it seems dyed in country blushes. Yet, for all that,
one could not be insensible to the exotic race and distinction of that
frivolous town petticoat, daintily disporting itself there among its
country cousins, like a queen among milkmaids.

What numberless suggestions of romance it awoke! What strange perfumes
seemed to waft across from it, perfumes laden with associations of a
world so different from the green world where it now was, a charming
world of gay intrigue and wanton pleasure. No wonder the wind chose it
so often for its partner as it danced through the garden, scorning to
notice the heavy homespun things about it. It was not every day that
that washing-day wind met so fine a lady, and it was charming to see
how gently he played about her stockings. "Ah, wind," I said,
"evidently you are a gallant born; but tell us the name of the lady.
It is somewhere on that pretty petticoat,