In dreams the pretty washerwoman and the portrait became mixed inextricably. I believed she looked like the portrait--that she was the portrait; and when I awoke in the morning and saw the melancholy eyes hanging opposite my bed, I could not help exclaiming, "Pardi! she does look like him! It is true her eyes are brighter and her dimpled chin rounder; otherwise the faces are the same. And did she not invite me to the house from which the portrait had been brought? I must see her again--the sooner the better." With this I arose and hurriedly dressed, my other self protesting against my resolution the while; but as the physical power is all on my side, he was obliged to accompany me. We went to No. 42 Notre Dame de Lorette, and were met by the same disagreeable concierge that we had seen before. To my questions he answered that no washerwoman lived in the house, and when I insisted he exclaimed pathetically, "For Heaven's sake go away! I have a wife and six children." I was so impressed by this startling information that I ejaculated, "What a philanthropist!" whilst my inner self, who luckily has not the gift of speech, said, "What a fool!" Then I remembered that asking after a washerwoman in Paris without knowing her name was rather quixotic, and I went my way. During the day I still had the disagreeable sensation of being watched. Men appeared to be noticing me from alleys, street-corners and windows, and once I made a sale to an individual who I was sure observed me more than the lace he was purchasing. When I passed the shop in the evening, Sticks neither looked at me nor returned my salutation, and when I half stopped to examine a new piece of dilapidation on the sidewalk he whispered abruptly, "Move on, I beg of you: _your_ custom is not wanted here." Was it strange that a series of the wildest conjectures should fill my mind? It was just before the Franco-German war, when the whole of Paris was in a fever of excitement and every event seemed to predict a political crisis. But in what manner could I, a simple lace-selling clerk, be connected with it? This last reflection of course emanated from my plain-talking self, who would rather believe the whole world mad than that anything important should happen to me. I was "not made of the stuff that distinction loves," he said, and begged me not to think that the eyes of the Empire were upon me. As I entered the house I tried to question my concierge about the pretty girl who had brought home my clothes, but found my efforts useless. The woman said she knew nothing of my washerwoman, not even her name. I tried by describing the girl to get a more definite answer. She intimated that she would have little to do if she looked at every one going up or down the stairs; then burst into tears, and begged me to leave her--that she was dependent on her place for support; that her reputation was all she had; and more to the same effect, which I avoided by making a precipitate retreat.