witty with whom he would hereafter hold intercourse; the generous
and heroic friends whose devotion would be requited with his own;
the beautiful dream-woman who would become the helpmate of his human
toils and sorrows and at once the source and partaker of his
happiness. Alas! it is not good for the full-grown man to look too
closely at these old acquaintances, but rather to reverence them at
a distance through the medium of years that have gathered duskily
between. There was something laughably untrue in their pompous
stride and exaggerated sentiment; they were neither human nor
tolerable likenesses of humanity, but fantastic maskers, rendering
heroism and nature alike ridiculous by the grave absurdity of their
pretensions to such attributes; and as for the peerless dream-lady,
behold! there advanced up the saloon, with a movement like a jointed
doll, a sort of wax-figure of an angel, a creature as cold as
moonshine, an artifice in petticoats, with an intellect of pretty
phrases and only the semblance of a heart, yet in all these
particulars the true type of a young man's imaginary mistress.
Hardly could the host's punctilious courtesy restrain a smile as he
paid his respects to this unreality and met the sentimental glance
with which the Dream sought to remind him of their former love
passages.

"No, no, fair lady," murmured he betwixt sighing and smiling; "my
taste is changed; I have learned to love what Nature makes better
than my own creations in the guise of womanhood."

"Ah, false one," shrieked the dream-lady, pretending to faint, but
dissolving into thin air, out of which came the deplorable murmur of
her voice, "your inconstancy has annihilated me."