Following the example of some other distracted _décorés_, who I found were sharing my honors, I placed a piece of money--I believe, in my case, it was silver--in the hand of the girl; and, receiving about five hundred times its value, in the shape of a smile and a "_Merci bien, monsieur!_" was again left alone--("desolate," a Frenchman would have said)--in the crowded and carousing Boulevard. To meet a perambulating and persuasive _Bouquetière_, who places a flower in your coat and waits for a pecuniary acknowledgment, is scarcely a rare adventure in Paris; but I was interested--unaccountably so--in this young girl: her whole manner and bearing was so different and distinct from all others of her calling. Without any of that appearance which, in England, we are accustomed to call "theatrical," she was such a being as we can scarcely believe in out of a ballet. Not, however, that her attire departed--except, perhaps, in a certain coquetish simplicity--from the conventional mode: its only decorations seemed to be ribbons, which also gave a character to the little cap that perched itself with such apparent insecurity upon her head. Living a life that seemed one long summer's day--one floral _fête_--with a means of existence that seemed so frail and immaterial--she conveyed an impression of _unreality_. She might be likened to a Nymph, or a Naiad, but for the certain something that brought you back to the theatre, intoxicating the senses, at once, with the strange, indescribable fascinations of hot chandeliers--close and perfumed air--foot-lights, and fiddlers. Evening after evening I saw the same girl--generally at the same place--and, it may be readily imagined, became one of the most constant of her _clientelle_. I learned, too, as many facts relating to her as could be learned where most was mystery. Her peculiar and persuasive mode of disposing of her flowers (a mode which has since become worse than vulgarized by bad imitators) was originally her own graceful instinct--or whim, if you will. It was something new and natural, and amused many, while it displeased none. The sternest of stockbrokers, even, could not choose but be decorated. Accordingly, this new Nydia of Thessaly went out with her basket one day, awoke next morning, and found herself famous. Meantime there was much discussion, and more mystification, as to who this Queen of Flowers could be--where she lived--and so forth. Nothing was known of her except her name--Hermance. More than one adventurous student--you may guess I am stating the number within bounds--traced her steps for hour after hour, till night set in--in vain. Her flowers disposed of, she was generally joined by an old man, respectably clad, whose arm she took with a certain confidence, that sufficiently marked him as a parent or protector; and the two always contrived sooner or later, in some mysterious manner, to disappear.