into my eyes so that I had to wipe the glasses of my spectacles.

Finally I found myself obliged to yield to the evidence, and to
affirm that I had really before my eyes the Fairy, the very same
Fairy I had been dreaming of in the library a few evenings before.
It was she, it was her very self, I assure you! She had the same
air of child-queen, the same proud supple poise; she held the same
hazel wand in her hand; she still wore her double-peaked head-dress,
and the train of her long brocade robe undulated about her little
feet. Same face, same figure. It was she indeed; and to prevent
any possible doubt of it, she was seated on the back of a huge old-
fashioned book strongly resembling the "Cosmography of Munster."
Her immobility but half reassured me; I was really afraid that she
was going to take some more nuts out of her alms-purse and throw the
shells at my face.

I was standing there, waving my hands and gaping, when the musical
and laughing voice of Madame de Gabry suddenly rang in my ears.

"So you are examining your fairy, Monsieur Bonnard!" said my hostess.
"Well, do you think the resemblance good?"

It was very quickly said; but even while hearing it I had time to
perceive that my fairy was a statuette in coloured wax, modeled with
much taste and spirit by some novice hand. But the phenomenon, even
thus reduced by a rational explanation, did not cease to excite my
surprise. How, and by whom, had the Lady of the Cosmography been
enabled to assume plastic existence? That was what remained for me
to learn.