any satisfaction is held by a tenure precarious at best. And even these
carpers, be they never so analytical, can at least find no lack of
springtime fervour in the eager throngs that pass entranced before the
window show. They, the free-swinging, quick-moving men and women--the
best dressed of all throngs in this young world--sun-browned,
sun-enlivened, recreated to a fine mettle for enjoyment by their months
of mountain or ocean sport--these are, indeed, the ones for whom this
afterspring is made to bloom. And, since they find it to be a shifting
miracle of perfections, how are they to be quarrelled with?

In the big polished windows waxen effigies of fine ladies, gracefully
patient, display the latest dinner-gown from Paris, or the creamiest of
be-ribboned tea-gowns. Or they pose in attitudes of polite adieux and
greeting, all but smothered in a king's ransom of sable and ermine. Or,
to the other extreme, they complacently permit themselves to be
observed in the intimate revelations of Parisian lingerie, with its
misty froth of embroideries, its fine-spun webs of foamy lace.

In another window, behold a sprightly and enlivening ballet of shapely
silken hosiery, fitting its sculptured models to perfection, ranging in
tints from the first tender green of spring foliage to the rose-pink of
the spring sun's after-glow.

A few steps beyond we may study a window where the waxen ladies have
been dismembered. Yet a second glance shows the retained portions to be
all that woman herself considers important when she tries on the
bird-toque or the picture hat, or the gauze confection for afternoons.
The satisfied smiles of these waxen counterfeits show them to have been
amply recompensed, with the headgear, for their physical
incompleteness.