neighborhood. She was fond of this nook and in it, before M. Hervart's arrival, she had spent whole mornings dreaming alone. She laughed at the childishness of those dreams now.
"It always seemed to me," she thought, "that the branches were just about to open, making way for some beautiful young cavalier ... Without saying a word, he would bring his horse to a stop at my side, would lean down, pick me up, lay me across the saddle and off we should go. Then there was to be a mad furious, endless gallop and in the end I should go to sleep. And in reality I used to wake up as though from a sleep, even though I hadn't dropped of. Nothing happened but this dumb ride in the blue air, and yet, when I came to myself, I felt tired...... How often I have dreamed this dream! How often have I seen the lilac plumes bending to make way for my lovely young knight and his black horse! The horse was always black. I remember very little of the face of the Perseus who delivered me, for a few hours at least, from the bondage of my boring existence .... A sport? That was indeed a sport!
