n the west by the Avenue de Marigny,
to the south by the road, to the north by the gardens of the Faubourg
Saint-Honore. Never is this pretty variety of woman to be seen in the
hyperborean regions of the Rue Saint-Denis, never in the Kamtschatka of
miry, narrow, commercial streets, never anywhere in bad weather.
These flowers of Paris, blooming only in Oriental weather, perfume the
highways; and after five o'clock fold up like morning-glory flowers.
The women you will see later, looking a little like them, are would-be
ladies; while the fair Unknown, your Beatrice of a day, is a 'perfect
lady.'

"It is not very easy for a foreigner, my dear Count, to recognize the
differences by which the observer _emeritus_ distinguishes them--women
are such consummate actresses; but they are glaring in the eyes of
Parisians: hooks ill fastened, strings showing loops of rusty-white
tape through a gaping slit in the back, rubbed shoe-leather, ironed
bonnet-strings, an over-full skirt, an over-tight waist. You will see
a certain effort in the intentional droop of the eyelid. There is
something conventional in the attitude.

"As to the _bourgeoise_, the citizen womankind, she cannot possibly be
mistaken for the spell cast over you by the Unknown. She is bustling,
and goes out in all weathers, trots about, comes, goes, gazes, does not
know whether she will or will not go into a shop. Where the lady knows
just what she wants and what she is doing, the townswoman is undecided,
tucks up her skirts to cross a gutter, dragging a child by the hand,
which compels her to look out for the vehicles; she is a mother in
public, and talks to her daughter; she carries money in her bag, and has
open-work stockings on her feet; in winter, she wears a boa over her
fur cloak; in summer, a shawl and a scarf; she is accomplished in the
redundancies of dress.

"You will meet the fair Unknown again at the Italiens, at the Opera,
at a ball. She will then appear under such a different aspect that you
would think them two beings devoid of any analogy. The woman has emerged
from those mysterious garments like a butterfly from its silky cocoon.
She serves up, like some rare dainty, to your lavished eyes, the forms
which her bodice scarcely revealed in the morning. At the theatre she
never mounts higher than the second tier, excepting at the Italiens.
You can there watch at your leisure the studied deliberateness of her
movements. The enchanting deceiver plays off