She is twenty-six years old--no more, neither less nor more.--She is not ignorant and she has not yet become _blasé._ It is a charming age at which to make love as it should be made, without puerile nonsense and without libertinage.--She is of medium height. I don't like a giant or a dwarf. I want to be able to carry my deity from the sofa to the bed without assistance; but it would be unpleasant to me to have to hunt for her there. She must be just tall enough to put her mouth to mine for a kiss by standing on tiptoe. That is the proper height. As for her size, she is rather plump than thin. I am a little of a Turk on that point, and it would be very disagreeable to me to find an angle where I was looking for a rounded outline; a woman's skin should be well filled out, her flesh hard and firm as the pulp of an almost ripe peach: the mistress I shall have is made in just that way. She is a blonde with black eyes, the fair skin of a blonde and the rich coloring of a brunette, something red and sparkling in her smile. The lower lip a little thick, the pupil of the eye swimming in a sea of aqueous humor, the throat well-rounded and small, the wrists slender, the hands long and plump, the gait undulating like a snake rearing on its tail, the hips full and flexible, the shoulders broad, the back of the neck covered with down;--a refined and yet healthy style of beauty, animated and graceful, poetic and human; a sketch by Giorgione executed by Rubens. This is her costume! she wears a dress of scarlet or black velvet slashed with white satin or cloth of silver, an open corsage, a huge ruff _à la_ Medici, a felt hat, capriciously dented like Helena Systerman's, and long white feathers crisp and curled, a gold chain or a stream of diamonds around her neck, and on all her fingers a number of large rings of various enamels.