maturing tastes of our wealthy citizens, partly because certain
public improvements had made a wreck of it. The row of dwellings in
one of which I lived stood a little way back from the street, each
having a miniature garden, separated from its neighbors by low iron
fences and bisected with mathematical precision by a box-bordered
gravel walk from gate to door.

"One morning as I was leaving my lodging I observed a young girl
entering the adjoining garden on the left. It was a warm day in
June, and she was lightly gowned in white. From her shoulders hung a
broad straw hat profusely decorated with flowers and wonderfully
beribboned in the fashion of the time. My attention was not long
held by the exquisite simplicity of her costume, for no one could
look at her face and think of anything earthly. Do not fear; I shall
not profane it by description; it was beautiful exceedingly. All
that I had ever seen or dreamed of loveliness was in that matchless
living picture by the hand of the Divine Artist. So deeply did it
move me that, without a thought of the impropriety of the act, I
unconsciously bared my head, as a devout Catholic or well-bred
Protestant uncovers before an image of the Blessed Virgin. The
maiden showed no displeasure; she merely turned her glorious dark
eyes upon me with a look that made me catch my breath, and without
other recognition of my act passed into the house. For a moment I
stood motionless, hat in hand, painfully conscious of my rudeness,
yet so dominated by the emotion inspired by that vision of
incomparable beauty that my penitence was less poignant than it
should have been. Then I went my way, leaving my heart behind. In
the natural course of things I should probably have remained away
until nightfall, but by the middle of the afternoon I was back in the
little garden, affecting an interest in the few foolish flowers that