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WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE 
 
 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS 
 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS 
 
 BY HENKY JAMES, JUN. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 LONDON 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1881 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 THE letter was a word of warning ; it informed him 
 that the Doctor had come home more impracticable 
 than ever. She might have reflected that Catherine 
 would supply him with all the information he needed 
 on this point; but we know that Mrs. Penniman's 
 reflections were rarely just ; and, moreover, she felt 
 that it was not for her to depend on what Catherine 
 might do. She was to do her duty, quite irrespec- 
 tive of Catherine. I have said that her young 
 friend took his ease with her, and it is an illustra- 
 tion of the fact that he made no answer to her 
 letter. He took note of it, amply ; but he lighted 
 his cigar with it, and he waited, in tranquil con- 
 fidence that he should receive another. " His state 
 of mind really freezes my blood," Mrs. Penniman 
 
 VOL. II. B 
 
2 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 had written, alluding to her brother ; and it would 
 have seemed that upon this statement she could 
 hardly improve. Nevertheless, she wrote again, 
 expressing herself with the aid of a different figure. 
 " His hatred of you burns with a lurid flame the 
 flame that never dies," she wrote. " But it doesn't 
 light up the darkness of your future. If my affec- 
 tion could do so, all the years of your life would be 
 an eternal sunshine. I can extract nothing from C. ; 
 she is so terribly secretive, like her father. She 
 seems to expect to be married very soon, and has 
 evidently made preparations in Europe quantities 
 of clothing, ten pairs of shoes, etc. My dear friend, 
 you cannot set up in married life simply with a few 
 pairs of shoes, can you ? Tell me what you think of 
 this. I am intensely anxious to see you ; I have 
 so much to say. I miss you dreadfully ; the house 
 seems so empty without you. What is the news 
 down town ? Is the business extending ? That 
 dear little business I think it's so brave of you ! 
 Couldn't I come to your office? just for three 
 minutes ? I might pass for a customer is that 
 what you call them. I might come in to buy some- 
 thing some shares or some railroad things. Tell 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 3 
 
 me what you think of this plan. I would carry a 
 little reticule, like a woman of the people." 
 
 In spite of the suggestion about the reticule, 
 Morris appeared to think poorly of the plan, for he 
 gave Mrs. Penniman no encouragement whatever to 
 visit his office, which he had already represented to 
 her as a place peculiarly and unnaturally difficult 
 to find. But as she persisted in desiring an inter- 
 view up to the last, after months of intimate 
 colloquy, she called these meetings " interviews " 
 he agreed that they should take a walk together, 
 and was even kind enough to leave his office for 
 this purpose, during the hours at which business 
 might have been supposed to be liveliest. It was 
 no surprise to him, when they met at a street-corner, 
 in a region of empty lots and undeveloped pave- 
 ments (Mrs. Penniman being attired as much as 
 possible like a " woman of the people "), to find that, 
 in spite of her urgency, what she chiefly had to 
 convey to him was the assurance of her sympathy. 
 Of such assurances, however, he had already a 
 voluminous collection, and it would not have been 
 worth his while to forsake a fruitful avocation 
 merely to hear Mrs. Penniman say, for the thousandth 
 
4 WASHINGTON SQUAEE. 
 
 time, that she had made his cause her own. Morris 
 had something of his own to say. It was an easy 
 thing to bring out, and while he turned it over the 
 difficulty made him acrimonious. 
 
 " Oh yes, I know perfectly that he combines the 
 properties of a lump of ice and a red-hot coal," he 
 observed. " Catherine has made it thoroughly clear, 
 and you have told me so till I am sick of it. You 
 needn't tell me again ; I am perfectly satisfied. He 
 will never give us a penny ; I regard that as mathe- 
 matically proved." 
 
 Mrs. Penniman at this point had an inspiration. 
 
 " Couldn't you bring a lawsuit against him ? " 
 She wondered that this simple expedient had never 
 occurred to her before. 
 
 " I will bring a lawsuit against you" said Morris, 
 " if you ask me any more such aggravating questions. 
 A man should know when he is beaten," he added, 
 in a moment. " I must give her up !" 
 
 Mrs. Penniman received this declaration in silence, 
 though it made her heart beat a little. It found 
 her by no means unprepared, for she had accustomed 
 herself to the thought that, if Morris should decidedly 
 not be able to get her brother's money, it would not 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 5 
 
 do for him to marry Catherine without it. "It 
 would not do" was a vague way of putting the 
 thing; but Mrs. Penniman's natural affection com- 
 pleted the idea, which, though it had not as yet been 
 so crudely expressed between them as in the form 
 that Morris had just given it, had nevertheless been 
 implied so often, in certain easy intervals of talk, as 
 he sat stretching his legs in the Doctor's well-stuffed 
 arm-chairs, that she had grown first to regard it with 
 an emotion which she flattered herself was philoso- 
 phic, and then to have a secret tenderness for it. 
 The fact that she kept her tenderness secret proves, 
 of course, that she was ashamed of it ; but she man- 
 aged to blink her shame by reminding herself that 
 she was, after all, the official protector of her niece's 
 marriage. Her logic would scarcely have passed 
 muster with the Doctor. In the first place, Morris 
 must get the money, and she would help him to it. 
 In the second, it was plain it would never come to 
 him, and it would be a grievous pity he should marry 
 without it a young man who might so easily find 
 something better. After her brother had delivered 
 himself, on his return from Europe, of that incisive 
 little address that has been quoted, Morris's cause 
 
6 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 seemed so hopeless that Mrs. Penniman fixed her 
 attention exclusively upon the latter branch of her 
 argument. If Morris had been her son, she would 
 certainly have sacrificed Catherine to a superior con- 
 ception of his future; and to be ready to do so as 
 the case stood was therefore even a finer degree of 
 devotion. Nevertheless, it checked her breath a little 
 to have the sacrificial knife, as it were, suddenly 
 thrust into her hand. 
 
 Morris walked along a moment, and then he re- 
 peated, harshly 
 
 " I must give her up !" 
 
 " I think I understand you," said Mrs. Penniman, 
 gently. 
 
 " I certainly say it distinctly enough brutally 
 and vulgarly enough." 
 
 He was ashamed of himself, and his shame was 
 uncomfortable ; and as he was extremely intolerant 
 of discomfort, he felt vicious and cruel. He wanted 
 to abuse somebody, and he began, cautiously for 
 he was always cautious with himself. 
 
 " Couldn't you take her down a little ?" he asked. 
 
 "Take her down?" 
 
 " Prepare her try and ease me off." 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 7 
 
 Mrs. Penniman stopped, looking at him very so- 
 lemnly. 
 
 " My poor Morris, do you know how much she 
 loves you." 
 
 "No, I don't. I don't want to know. I have 
 always tried to keep from knowing. It would be 
 too painful." 
 
 " She will suffer much," said Mrs. Penniman. 
 
 " You must console her. If you are as good a 
 friend to me as you pretend to be, you will manage 
 it." 
 
 Mrs. Penniman shook her head, sadly. 
 
 " You talk of my ' pretending J to like you ; but 
 I can't pretend to hate you. I can only tell her I 
 think very highly of you; and how will that console 
 her for losing you ?" 
 
 " The Doctor will help you. He will be delighted 
 at the thing being broken off, and, as he is a know- 
 ing fellow, he will invent something to comfort her." 
 
 " He will invent a new torture I" cried Mrs. 
 Penniman. " Heaven deliver her from her father's 
 comfort. It will consist of his crowing over her 
 and saying, ' I always told you so ! '" 
 
 Morris coloured a most uncomfortable red. 
 
8 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 " If you don't console her any better than you 
 console me, you certainly won't be of much use ! 
 It's a damned disagreeable necessity ; I feel it ex- 
 tremely, and you ought to make it easy for me." 
 
 " I will be your friend for life !" Mrs. Penniman 
 declared. 
 
 " Be my friend now /" And Morris walked on. 
 
 She went with him ; she was almost trembling. 
 
 " Should you like me to tell her ?" she asked. 
 
 " You mustn't tell her, but you can you can 
 
 ." And he hesitated, trying to think what 
 
 Mrs. Penniman could do. " You can explain to her 
 why it is. It's because I can't bring myself to step 
 in between her and her father to give him the 
 pretext he grasps at so eagerly (it's a hideous sight) 
 for depriving her of her rights." 
 
 Mrs. Penniman felt with remarkable promptitude 
 the charm of this formula. 
 
 "That's so like you," she said; "it's so finely 
 felt." 
 
 Morris gave his stick an angry swing. 
 
 " Oh botheration !" he exclaimed perversely. 
 
 Mrs. Penniman, however, was not discouraged. 
 
 " It may turn out better than you think. Cath- 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 9 
 
 erine is, after all, so very peculiar." And she thought 
 she might take it upon herself to assure him that, 
 whatever happened, the girl would be very quiet- 
 she wouldn't make a noise. They extended their 
 walk, and, while they proceeded, Mrs. Penniman 
 took upon herself other things besides, and ended 
 by having assumed a considerable burden ; Morris 
 being ready enough, as may be imagined, to put 
 everything off upon her. But he was not for a 
 single instant the dupe of her blundering alacrity ; 
 he knew that of what she promised she was compe- 
 tent to perform but an insignificant fraction, and the 
 more she professed her willingness to serve him, the 
 greater fool he thought her. 
 
 " What will you do if you don't marry her ?" 
 she ventured to inquire in the course of this con- 
 versation. 
 
 " Something brilliant," said Morris. " Shouldn't 
 you like me to do something brilliant ?" 
 
 The idea gave Mrs. Penniman exceeding pleasure. 
 
 " I shall feel sadly taken in if you don't." 
 
 " I shall have to, to make up for this. This isn't 
 at all brilliant, you know." 
 
 Mrs. Penniman mused a little, as if there might 
 
10 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 be some way of making out that it was ; but she 
 had to give up the attempt, and, to carry off the 
 awkwardness of failure, she risked a new inquiry. 
 
 "Do you mean do you mean another mar- 
 riage?" 
 
 Morris greeted this question with a reflection 
 which was hardly the less impudent from being in- 
 audible. " Surely, women are more crude than 
 men!" And then he answered audibly 
 
 "Never in the world!" 
 
 Mrs. Penniman felt disappointed and snubbed, 
 and she relieved herself in a little vaguely sarcastic 
 cry. He was certainly perverse. 
 
 " I give her up not for another woman, but for a 
 wider career ! " Morris announced. 
 
 This was very grand ; but still Mrs. Penniman, 
 who felt that she had exposed herself, was faintly 
 rancorous. 
 
 "Do you mean never to come to see her again ?" 
 she asked, with some sharpness. 
 
 " Oh no, I shall come again ; but what is the use 
 of dragging it out ? I have been four times since she 
 came back, and it's terribly awkward work. I can't 
 keep it up indefinitely; she oughtn't to expect that, 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 11 
 
 you know. A woman should never keep a man 
 dangling !" he added, finely. 
 
 "Ah, but you must have your last parting!" 
 urged his companion, in whose imagination the idea 
 of last partings occupied a place inferior in dignity 
 
 only to that of first meetings. 
 
 UNJVEKSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
XXIX. 
 
 HE came again, without managing the last part- 
 ing ; and again and again, without finding that Mrs. 
 Penniman had as yet done much to pave the path of 
 retreat with flowers. It was devilish awkward, as 
 he said, and he felt a lively animosity for Catherine's 
 aunt, who, as he had now quite formed the habit of 
 saying to himself, had dragged him into the mess 
 and was bound in common charity to get him out of 
 it. Mrs. Penniman, to tell the truth, had, in the 
 seclusion of her own apartment and, I may add, 
 amid the suggestiveness of Catherine's, which wore in 
 those days the appearance of that of a young lady lay- 
 ing out her trousseau Mrs. Penniman had measured 
 her responsibilities, and taken fright at their magni- 
 tude. The task of preparing Catherine and easing 
 off Morris presented difficulties which increased in 
 the execution, and even led the impulsive Lavinia 
 to ask herself whether the modification of the young 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 13 
 
 man's original project had been conceived in a happy 
 spirit. A brilliant future, a wider career, a conscience 
 exempt from the reproach of interference between a 
 young lady and her natural rights these excellent 
 things might be too troublesomely purchased. From 
 Catherine herself Mrs. Penniman received no assist- 
 ance whatever ; the poor girl was apparently without 
 suspicion of her danger. She looked at her lover 
 with eyes of undiminished trust, and though she had 
 less confidence in her aunt than in a young man with 
 whom she had exchanged so many tender vows, she 
 gave her no handle for explaining or confessing. 
 Mrs. Penniman, faltering and wavering, declared 
 Catherine was very stupid, put off the great scene, 
 as she would have called it, from day to day, and 
 wandered about very uncomfortably, primed, to 
 repletion, with her apology, but unable to bring it 
 to the light. Morris's own scenes were very small 
 ones just now ; but even these were beyond his 
 strength. He made his visits as brief as possible, 
 and, while he sat with his mistress, found terribly 
 little to talk about. She was waiting for him, in 
 vulgar parlance, to name the day ; and so long as he 
 was unprepared to be explicit on this point, it seemed 
 
14 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 a mockery to pretend to talk about matters more 
 abstract. She had no airs and no arts; she never 
 attempted to disguise her expectancy. She was 
 waiting on his good pleasure, and would wait 
 modestly and patiently; his hanging back at this 
 supreme time might appear strange, but of course he 
 must have a good reason for it. Catherine would 
 have made a wife of the gentle old-fashioned pattern 
 regarding reasons as favours and windfalls, but no 
 more expecting one every day than she would have 
 expected a bouquet of camellias. During the period 
 of her engagement, however, a young lady even of the 
 most slender pretensions counts upon more bouquets 
 than at other times ; and there was a want of perfume 
 in the air at this moment which at last excited the 
 girl's alarm. 
 
 "Are you sick?" she asked of Morris. "You 
 seem so restless, and you look pale." 
 
 " I am not at all well," said Morris ; and it occurred 
 to him that, if he could only make her pity him 
 enough, he might get off. 
 
 "I am afraid you are overworked; you oughtn't 
 to work so much." 
 
 "I must do that." And then he added, with a 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 15 
 
 sort of calculated brutality, "I don't want to owe 
 you everything ! " 
 
 " Ah, how can you say that ? " 
 
 " I am too proud," said Morris. 
 
 " Yes you are too proud ! " 
 
 " Well, you must take me as I am," he went on. 
 " you can never change me." 
 
 " I don't want to change you," she said, gently. 
 " I will take you as you are ! " And she stood 
 looking at him. 
 
 "You know people talk tremendously about a 
 man's marrying a rich girl," Morris remarked. " It's 
 excessively disagreeable." 
 
 " But I am not rich ? " said Catherine. 
 
 " You are rich enough to make me talked about ! " 
 
 " Of course you are talked about. It's an honour ! " 
 
 " It's an honour I could easily dispense with." 
 
 She was on the point of asking him whether it were 
 not a compensation for this annoyance that the poor 
 girl who had the misfortune to bring it upon him, 
 loved him so dearly and believed in him so truly; 
 but she hesitated, thinking that this would perhaps 
 seem an exacting speech, and while she hesitated, he 
 suddenly left her. 
 
16 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 The next time he came, however, she brought it 
 out, and she told him again that he was too proud. 
 He repeated that he couldn't change, and this time 
 she felt the impulse to say that with a little effort he 
 might change. 
 
 Sometimes he thought that if he could only 
 make a quarrel with her it might help him ; but the 
 question was how to quarrel with a young woman 
 who had such treasures of concession. " I suppose 
 you think the effort is all on your side ! " he was 
 reduced to exclaiming. "Don't you believe that I 
 have my own effort to make ?" 
 
 " It's all yours now," she said, " My effort is 
 finished and done with !" 
 
 " Well, mine is not." 
 
 " We must bear things together," said Catherine. 
 " That's what we ought to do." 
 
 Morris attempted a natural smile. " There are 
 some things which we can't very well bear together 
 for instance, separation." 
 
 " Why do you speak of separation ?" 
 
 " Ah ! you don't like it ; I knew you wouldn't !" 
 
 "Where are you going, Morris?" she suddenly 
 asked. 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 17 
 
 He fixed his eye on her a moment, and for a part 
 of that moment she was afraid of it. " Will you 
 promise not to make a scene ?" 
 
 " A scene ! do I make scenes ?" 
 
 " All women do !" said Morris, with the tone of 
 large experience. 
 
 " I don't. Where are you going ?" 
 
 " If I should say I was going away on business, 
 should you think it very strange ?" 
 
 She wondered a moment, gazing at him. " Yes 
 no. Not if you will take me with you." 
 
 " Take you with me on business ?" 
 
 " What is your business ? Your business is to 
 be with me." 
 
 " I don't earn my living with you," said Morris, 
 "Or rather," he cried with a sudden inspiration, "that's 
 just what I do or what the world says I do?" 
 
 This ought perhaps to have been a great stroke, but 
 it miscarried. "Where are you going?" Catherine 
 simply repeated. 
 
 " To New Orleans. About buying some cotton." 
 
 " I am perfectly willing to go to New Orleans," 
 Catherine said. 
 
 " Do you suppose I would take you to a nest of 
 
 VOL. II. ^ C 
 
18 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 yellow fever ?" cried Morris. " Do you suppose I 
 would expose you at such a time as this ?" 
 
 " If there is yellow fever, why should you go ? 
 Morris, you must not go ?" 
 
 " It is to make six thousand dollars," said Morris. 
 "Do you grudge me that satisfaction ?" 
 
 " We have no need of six thousand dollars. You 
 think too much about money !" 
 
 " You can afford to say that ? This is a great 
 chance ; we heard of it last night." And he ex- 
 plained to her in what the chance consisted ; and 
 told her a long story, going over more than once 
 several of the details, about the remarkable stroke 
 of business which he and his partner had planned 
 between them. 
 
 But Catherine's imagination, for reasons best 
 known to herself, absolutely refused to be fired. 
 " If you can go to New Orleans, I can go," she said. 
 "Why shouldn't you catch yellow fever quite as 
 easily as I ? I am every bit as strong as you, and* 
 not in the least afraid of any fever. When we were 
 in Europe, we were in very unhealthy places ; my 
 father used to make me take some pills. I never 
 caught anything, and I never was nervous. What 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 19 
 
 will be the use of six thousand dollars if you die of 
 a fever ? When persons are going to be married, 
 they oughtn't to think so much about business. 
 You shouldn't think about cotton, you should think 
 about me. You can go to New Orleans some other 
 time there will always be plenty of cotton. It 
 isn't the moment to choose we have waited too 
 long already." She spoke more forcibly and volubly 
 than he had ever heard her, and she held his arm in 
 her two hands. 
 
 " You said you wouldn't make a scene !" cried 
 Morris. " I call this a scene." 
 
 " It's you that are making it ! I have never 
 asked you anything before. We have waited too 
 long already." And it was a comfort to her to think 
 that she had hitherto asked so little; it seemed to 
 make her right to insist the greater now. 
 
 Morris bethought himself a little. " Very well, 
 then; we won't talk about it any more. I will 
 transact my business by letter." And he began to 
 smooth his hat, as if to take leave. 
 
 " You won't go ?" And she stood looking up at 
 him. 
 
 He could not give up his idea of provoking a 
 
20 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 quarrel ; it was so much the simplest way ! He 
 bent his eyes on her upturned face, with the darkest 
 frown he could achieve. "You are not discreet. 
 You mustn't bully me !" 
 
 But, as usual, she conceded everything. " No, I 
 am not discreet ; I know I am too pressing. But 
 isn't it natural ? It is only for a moment." 
 
 " In a moment you may do a great deal of harm. 
 Try and be calmer the next time I come." 
 
 "When will you come ?" 
 
 " Do you want to make conditions ?" Morris 
 asked. " I will come next Saturday." 
 
 " Come to-morrow," Catherine begged ; " I want 
 you to come to-morrow. I will be very quiet," she 
 added ; and her agitation had by this time become 
 so great that the assurance was not unbecoming. 
 A sudden fear had come over her ; it was like the 
 solid conjunction of a dozen disembodied doubts, and 
 her imagination, at a single bound, had traversed an 
 enormous distance. All her being, for the moment, 
 centred in the wish to keep him in the room. 
 
 Morris bent his head and kissed her forehead. 
 " When you are quiet, you are perfection," he said ; 
 " but when you are violent, you are not in character." 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 21 
 
 It was Catherine's wish that there should be no 
 violence about her save the beating of her heart, 
 which she could not help ; and she went on, as 
 gently as possible, " Will you promise to come to- 
 morrow?" 
 
 "I said Saturday!" Morris answered smiling. 
 He tried a frown at one moment, a smile at another ; 
 he was at his wit's end. 
 
 "Yes, Saturday too," she answered, trying to 
 smile. " But to-morrow first." He was going to 
 the door, and she went with him, quickly. She 
 leaned her shoulder against it; it seemed to her 
 that she would do anything to keep him. 
 
 " If I am prevented from coming to-morrow, you 
 will say I have deceived you !" he said. 
 
 " How can you be prevented ? You can come 
 if you will." 
 
 " I am a busy man I am not a dangler !" cried 
 Morris, sternly. 
 
 His voice was so hard and unnatural that, with 
 a helpless look at him, she turned away ; and then 
 he quickly laid his hand on the door-knob. He 
 felt as if he were absolutely running away from her. 
 But in an instant she was close to him again, and 
 
22 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 murmuring in a tone none the less penetrating for 
 being low, " Morris, you are going to leave me." 
 
 " Yes, for a little while." 
 
 "For -how long?" 
 
 " Till you are reasonable again." 
 
 " I shall never be reasonable in that way ! " 
 And she tried to keep him longer ; it was almost a 
 struggle. " Think of what I have done !" she broke 
 out. " Morris, I have given up everything !" 
 
 " You shall have everything back !" 
 
 "You wouldn't say that if you didn't mean 
 something. What is it ? what has happened ? 
 what have I done ? what has changed you ?" 
 
 "I will write to you that is better," Morris 
 stammered. 
 
 " Ah, you won't come back !" she cried, bursting 
 into tears. 
 
 " Dear Catherine," he said, " don't believe that ! 
 I promise you that you shall see me again !" And 
 he managed to get away and to close the door be- 
 hind him. 
 
XXX. 
 
 IT was almost her last outbreak of passive grief; at 
 least, she never indulged in another that the world 
 knew anything about. But this one was long and 
 terrible ; she flung herself on the sofa and gave 
 herself up to her misery. She hardly knew what 
 had happened ; ostensibly she had only had a dif- 
 ference with her lover, as other girls had had before, 
 and the thing was not only not a rupture, but she 
 was under no obligation to regard it even as a 
 menace. Nevertheless, she felt a wound, even if he 
 had not dealt it ; it seemed to her that a mask had 
 suddenly fallen from his face. He had wished to 
 get away from her; he had been angry and cruel, 
 and said strange things, with strange looks. She 
 was smothered and stunned ; she buried her head 
 in the cushions, sobbing and talking to herself. 
 But at last she raised herself, with the fear that 
 either her father or Mrs. Penniman would come in ; 
 
24 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 and then she sat there, staring before her, while the 
 room grew darker. She said to herself that perhaps 
 he would come back to tell her he had not meant 
 what he said ; and she listened for his ring at the 
 door, trying to believe that this was probable. A 
 long time passed, but Morris remained absent ; the 
 shadows gathered ; the evening settled down on the 
 meagre elegance of the light, clear-coloured room ; 
 the fire went out. When it had grown dark, 
 Catherine went to the window and looked out ; she 
 stood there for half an hour, on the mere chance 
 that he would come up the steps. At last she 
 turned away, for she saw her father come in. He 
 had seen her at the window looking out, and he 
 stopped a moment at the bottom of the white steps, 
 and gravely, with an air of exaggerated courtesy, 
 lifted his hat to her. The gesture was so incongru- 
 ous to the condition she was in, this stately tribute 
 of respect to a poor girl despised and forsaken was 
 so out of place, that the thing gave her a kind of 
 horror, and she hurried away to her room. It 
 seemed to her that she had given Morris up. 
 
 She had to show herself half an hour later, and 
 she was sustained at table by the immensity of her 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 25 
 
 desire that her father should not perceive that any- 
 thing had happened. This was a great help to her 
 afterwards, and it served her (though never as much 
 as she supposed) from the first. On this occasion 
 Dr. Sloper was rather talkative. He told a great 
 many stories about a wonderful poodle that he had 
 seen at the house of an old lady whom he visited 
 professionally. Catherine not only tried to appear 
 to listen to the anecdotes of the poodle, but she 
 endeavoured to interest herself in them, so as not to 
 think of her scene with Morris. That perhaps was 
 an hallucination ; he was mistaken, she was jealous ; 
 people didn't change like that from one day to 
 another. Then she knew that she had had doubts 
 before strange suspicions, that were at once vague 
 and acute and that he had been different ever 
 since her return from Europe : whereupon she tried 
 again to listen to her father, who told a story so 
 remarkably well. Afterwards she went straight to 
 her own room ; it was beyond her strength to 
 undertake to spend the evening with her aunt. 
 All the evening, alone, she questioned herself. 
 Her trouble was terrible ; but was it a thing of 
 her imagination, engendered by an extravagant 
 
26 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 sensibility, or did it represent a clear-cut reality, 
 and had the worst that was possible actually come 
 to pass ? Mrs. Penniman, with a degree of tact 
 that was as unusual as it was commendable, took 
 the line of leaving her alone. The truth is, that 
 her suspicions having been aroused, she indulged a 
 desire, natural to a timid person, that the explosion 
 should be localised. So long as the air still vibrated 
 she kept out of the way. 
 
 She passed and repassed Catherine's door several 
 times in the course of the evening, as if she expected 
 to hear a plaintive moan behind it. But the room 
 remained perfectly still; and accordingly, the last 
 thing before retiring to her own couch, she applied 
 for admittance. Catherine was sitting up, and had 
 a book that she pretended to be reading. She had 
 no wish to go to bed, for she had no expectation of 
 sleeping. After Mrs. Penniman had left her she 
 sat up half the night, and she offered her visitor no 
 inducement to remain. Her aunt came stealing 
 in very gently, and approached her with great 
 solemnity. 
 
 " I am afraid you are in trouble, my dear. Can 
 I do anything to help you ?" 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 27 
 
 " I am not in any trouble whatever, and do not 
 need any help," said Catherine, fibbing roundly, and 
 proving thereby that not only our faults, but our most 
 involuntary misfortunes, tend to corrupt our morals. 
 
 " Has nothing happened to you?" 
 
 " Nothing whatever." 
 
 " Are you very sure, dear ?" 
 
 " Perfectly sure." 
 
 " And can I really do nothing for you ?" 
 
 " Nothing, aunt, but kindly leave me alone," said 
 Catherine. 
 
 Mrs. Penniman, though she had been afraid of 
 too warm a welcome before, was now disappointed 
 at so cold a one ; and in relating afterwards, as she 
 did to many persons, and with considerable varia- 
 tions of detail, the history of the termination of her 
 niece's engagement, she was usually careful to 
 mention that the young lady, on a certain occasion, 
 had " hustled " her out of the room. It was char- 
 acteristic of Mrs. Penniman that she related this 
 fact, not in the least out of malignity to Catherine, 
 whom she very sufficiently pitied, but simply from 
 a natural disposition to embellish any subject that 
 she touched. 
 
28 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 Catherine, as I have said, sat up half the night, 
 as if she still expected to hear Morris Townsend 
 ring at the door. On the morrow this expectation 
 was less unreasonable ; but it was not gratified by 
 the reappearance of the young man. Neither had 
 he written ; there was not a word of explanation or 
 reassurance. Fortunately for Catherine she could 
 take refuge from her excitement, which had now 
 become intense, in her determination that her father 
 should see nothing of it. How well she deceived 
 her father we shall have occasion to learn ; but her 
 innocent arts were of little avail before a person of 
 the rare perspicacity of Mrs. Penniman. This lady 
 easily saw that she was agitated, and if there was 
 any agitation going forward, Mrs. Penniman was not 
 a person to forfeit her natural share in it. She 
 returned to the charge the next evening, and 
 requested her niece to lean upon her to unburden 
 her heart. Perhaps she should be able to explain 
 certain things that now seemed dark, and that she 
 knew more about than Catherine supposed. If 
 Catherine had been frigid the night before, to-day 
 she was haughty. 
 
 " You are completely mistaken, and I have not 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 29 
 
 the least idea what you mean. I don't know 
 what you are trying to fasten on me, and I have 
 never had less need of any one's explanations in my 
 life." 
 
 In this way the girl delivered herself, and from 
 hour to hour kept her aunt at bay. From hour 
 to hour Mrs. Penniman's curiosity grew. She 
 would have given her little finger to know what 
 Morris had said and done, what tone he had taken, 
 what pretext he had found. She wrote to him, 
 naturally, to request an interview ; but she received, 
 as naturally, no answer to her petition. Morris 
 was not in a writing mood ; for Catherine had 
 addressed him two short notes which met with no 
 acknowledgment. These notes were so brief that I 
 may give them entire. " Won't you give me some 
 sign that you didn't mean to be so cruel as you 
 seemed on Tuesday?" that was the first; the 
 other was a little longer. " If I was unreasonable 
 or suspicious, on Tuesday if I annoyed you or 
 troubled you in any way I beg your forgiveness, 
 and I promise never again to be so foolish. I am 
 punished enough, and I don't understand. Dear 
 Morris, you are killing me ! " These notes were 
 
30 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 despatched on the Friday and Saturday ; but Satur- 
 day and Sunday passed without bringing the poor 
 girl the satisfaction she desired. Her punishment 
 accumulated ; she continued to bear it, however, 
 with a good deal of superficial fortitude. On 
 Saturday morning, the Doctor, who had been watch- 
 ing in silence, spoke to his sister Lavinia. 
 
 " The thing has happened the scoundrel has 
 backed out !" 
 
 "Never!" cried Mrs. Penniman, who had be- 
 thought herself what she should say to Catherine, 
 but was not provided with a line of defence against 
 her brother, so that indignant negation was the only 
 weapon in her hands. 
 
 " He has begged for a reprieve, then, if you like 
 that better !" 
 
 " It seems to make you very happy that your 
 daughter's affections have been trifled with." 
 
 " It does," said the Doctor ; " for I had foretold 
 it ! It's a great pleasure to be in the right." 
 
 " Your pleasures make one shudder !" his sister 
 exclaimed. 
 
 Catherine went rigidly through her usual 
 occupations ; that is, up to the point of going with 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 31 
 
 her aunt to church on Sunday morning. She 
 generally went to afternoon service as well ; but on 
 this occasion her courage faltered, and she begged 
 of Mrs. Penniman to go without her. 
 
 "I am sure you have a secret," said Mrs. 
 Penniman, with great significance, looking at her 
 rather grimly. 
 
 " If I have, I shall keep it !" Catherine answered, 
 turning away. 
 
 Mrs. Penniman started for church; but before 
 she had arrived, she stopped and turned back, and 
 before twenty minutes had elapsed she re-entered 
 the house, looked into the empty parlours, and then 
 went upstairs and knocked at Catherine's door. 
 She got no answer ; Catherine was not in her 
 room, and Mrs. Penniman presently ascertained 
 that she was not in the house. " She has gone to 
 him, she has fled ! " Lavinia cried, clasping her 
 hands with admiration and envy. But she soon 
 perceived that Catherine had taken nothing with 
 her all her personal property in her room was 
 intact and then she jumped at the hypothesis 
 that the girl had gone forth, not in tenderness, but 
 in resentment. " She has followed him to his own 
 
32 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 door she has burst upon him in his own apart- 
 ment ! " It was in these terms that Mrs. Penniman 
 depicted to herself her niece's errand, which, viewed 
 in this light, gratified her sense of the picturesque 
 only a shade less strongly than the idea of a 
 clandestine marriage. To visit one's lover, with 
 tears and reproaches, at his own residence, was an 
 image so agreeable to Mrs. Penniman's mind that 
 she felt a sort of aesthetic disappointment at its 
 lacking, in this case, the harmonious accompani- 
 ments of darkness and storm. A quiet Sunday 
 afternoon appeared an inadequate setting for it ; 
 and, indeed, Mrs. Penniman was quite out of 
 humour with the conditions of the time, which 
 passed very slowly as she sat in the front-parlour, 
 in her bonnet and her cashmere shawl, awaiting 
 Catherine's return. 
 
 This event at last took place. She saw her 
 at the window mount the steps, and she went to 
 await her in the hall, where she pounced upon her 
 as soon as she had entered the house, and drew her 
 into the parlour, closing the door with solemnity. 
 Catherine was flushed, and her eye was bright. 
 Mrs. Penniman hardly knew what to think. 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 33 
 
 " May I venture to ask where you have been ? " 
 she demanded. 
 
 " I have been to take a walk," said Catherine. 
 " I thought you had gone to church." 
 
 " I did go to church ; but the service was shorter 
 than usual. And pray where did you walk ?" 
 
 " I don't know ! " said Catherine. 
 
 " Your ignorance is most extraordinary ! Dear 
 Catherine, you can trust me." 
 
 " What am I to trust you with ?" 
 
 " "With your secret your sorrow." 
 
 " I have no sorrow !" said Catherine fiercely. 
 
 " My poor child," Mrs. Penniman insisted, " you 
 can't deceive me. I know everything. I have been 
 requested to a to converse with you." 
 
 " I don't want to converse !" 
 
 " It will relieve you. Don't you know Shake- 
 speare's lines? 'the grief that does not speak!' 
 My dear girl, it is better as it is." 
 
 " What is better ? " Catherine asked. 
 
 She was really too perverse. A certain amount 
 of perversity was to be allowed for in a young lady 
 whose lover had thrown her over ; but not such an 
 
 VOL. II. D 
 
34 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 amount as would prove inconvenient to his apolo- 
 gists. " That you should be reasonable/' said Mrs. 
 Penniman, with some sternness. " That you should 
 take counsel of worldly prudence, and submit to 
 practical considerations. That you should agree to 
 a separate." 
 
 Catherine had been ice up to this moment, but 
 at this word she flamed up. " Separate ? What do 
 you know about our separating ? " 
 
 Mrs. Penniman shook her head with a sadness 
 in which there was almost a sense of injury. " Your 
 pride is my pride, and your susceptibilities are mine. 
 I see your side perfectly, but I also " and she 
 smiled with melancholy suggestiveness " I also see 
 the situation as a whole !" 
 
 This suggestiveness was lost upon Catherine, who 
 repeated her violent inquiry. "Why do you talk 
 about separation ; what do you know about it ?" 
 
 " We must study resignation," said Mrs. Penni- 
 man, hesitating, but sententious at a venture. 
 
 " Eesignation to what ?" 
 
 " To a change of of our plans." 
 
 " My plans have not changed !" said Catherine, 
 with a little laugh. 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 35 
 
 "Ah, but Mr. Townsend's have," her aunt 
 answered very gently. 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 There was an imperious brevity in the tone of 
 this inquiry, against which Mrs. Penniman felt 
 bound to protest ; the information with which she 
 had undertaken to supply her niece was after all 
 a favour. She had tried sharpness, and she had 
 tried sternness ; but neither would do ; she was 
 shocked at the girl's obstinacy. "Ah, well," she 
 said, " if he hasn't told you ! . . ." and she turned 
 away. 
 
 Catherine watched her a moment in silence ; 
 then she hurried after her, stopping her before she 
 reached the door. " Told me what ? What do you 
 mean ? What are you hinting at and threatening 
 me with?" 
 
 " Isn't it broken off ?" asked Mrs. Penniman. 
 
 " My engagement ? Not in the least !" 
 
 " I beg your pardon in that case. I have spoken 
 too soon ! " 
 
 " Too soon ! Soon or late," Catherine broke out, 
 " you speak foolishly and cruelly !" 
 
 " What has happened between you then ?" asked 
 
36 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 her aunt struck by the sincerity of this cry. " For 
 something certainly has happened." 
 
 " Nothing has happened but that I love him more 
 and more ! " 
 
 Mrs. Penniman was silent an instant. " I sup- 
 pose that's the reason you went to see him this 
 afternoon." 
 
 Catherine flushed as if she had been struck. "Yes, 
 I did go to see him ! But that's my own business." 
 
 " Very well, then ; we won't talk about it." And 
 Mrs. Penniman moved towards the door again. But 
 she was stopped by a sudden imploring cry from the 
 girl. 
 
 " Aunt Lavinia, where has he gone ? " 
 
 " Ah, you admit then that he has gone away ? 
 Didn't they know at his house ? " 
 
 "They said he had left town. I asked no more 
 questions ; I was ashamed," said Catherine simply 
 enough. 
 
 " You needn't have taken so compromising a step 
 if you had had a little more confidence in me," Mrs. 
 Penniman observed, with a good deal of grandeur. 
 
 " Is it to New Orleans ! " Catherine went on, 
 irrelevantly. 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 37 
 
 It was the first time Mrs. Penniman had heard 
 of New Orleans in this connection ; but she was 
 averse to letting Catherine know that she was in 
 the dark. She attempted to strike an illumination 
 from the instructions she had received from Morris. . 
 " My dear Catherine," she said, " when a separation 
 has been agreed upon, the farther he goes away the 
 better." 
 
 " Agreed upon ? Has he agreed upon it with 
 you ?" A consummate sense of her aunt's meddle- 
 some folly had come over her during the last five 
 minutes, and she was sickened at the thought that 
 Mrs. Penniman had been let loose, as it were, upon 
 her happiness. 
 
 " He certainly has sometimes advised with me," 
 said Mrs. Penniman. 
 
 " Is it you then that have changed him and made 
 him so unnatural ? " Catherine cried. " Is it you 
 that have worked on him and taken him from me ! 
 He doesn't belong to you, and I don't see how you 
 have anything to do with what is between us ! Is 
 it you that have made this plot and told him to 
 leave me ? How could you be so wicked, so cruel ? 
 What have I ever done to you ; why can't you 
 
38 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 leave me alone ? I was afraid you would spoil 
 everything ; for you do spoil everything you touch ! 
 I was afraid of you all the time we were abroad ; I 
 had no rest when I thought that you were always 
 talking to him." Catherine went on with growing 
 vehemence, pouring out in her bitterness and in the 
 clairvoyance of her passion (which suddenly, jumping 
 all processes, made her judge her aunt finally and 
 without appeal), the uneasiness which had lain for 
 so many months upon her heart. 
 
 Mrs. Penniman was scared and bewildered ; she 
 saw no prospect of introducing her little account of 
 the purity of Morris's motives. " You are a most 
 ungrateful girl !" she cried. " Do you scold me for 
 talking with him ! I am sure we never talked of 
 anything but you !" 
 
 ' Yes ; and that was the way you worried him ; 
 you made him tired of my very name ! I wish you 
 had never spoken of me to him ; I never asked your 
 help!" 
 
 " I am sure if it hadn't been for me he would 
 never have come to the house, and you would never 
 have known what he thought of you," Mrs. Penni- 
 man rejoined with a good deal of justice. 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 39 
 
 " I wish he never had come to the house, and 
 that I never had known it ! That's better than this/' 
 said poor Catherine. 
 
 " You are a very ungrateful girl," Aunt Lavinia 
 repeated. 
 
 Catherine's outbreak of anger and the sense of 
 wrong gave her, while they lasted, the satisfaction that 
 comes from all assertion of force ; they hurried her 
 along, and there is always a sort of pleasure in 
 cleaving the air. But at the bottom she hated to 
 be violent, and she was conscious of no aptitude for 
 organised resentment. She calmed herself with a 
 great effort, but with great rapidity, and walked 
 about the room a few moments, trying to say to 
 herself that her aunt had meant everything for the 
 best. She did not succeed in saying it with much 
 conviction, but after a little she was aT)le to speak 
 quietly enough. 
 
 " I am not ungrateful, but I am very unhappy. 
 It's hard to be grateful for that," she said. " Will 
 you please tell me where he is ?" 
 
 " I haven't the least idea ; I am not in secret 
 correspondence with him!" And Mrs. Penniman 
 wished indeed that she were, so that she might 
 
40 WASHINGTON SQUAKE. 
 
 let him know how Catherine abused her, after all 
 she had done. 
 
 "Was it a plan of his, then, to break off ?" 
 
 By this time Catherine had become completely quiet. 
 
 Mrs. Penniman began again to have a glimpse of 
 her chance for explaining. "He shrank he shrank," 
 she said. " He lacked courage, but it was the cour- 
 age to injure you ! He couldn't bear to bring down 
 on you your father's curse." 
 
 Catherine listened to this with her eyes fixed 
 upon her aunt, and continued to gaze at her for 
 some time afterwards "Did he tell you to say 
 that?" 
 
 " He told me to say many things all so delicate, 
 so discriminating. And he told me to tell you he 
 hoped you wouldn't despise him." 
 
 "I don't," said Catherine. And then she added: 
 " And will he stay away for ever ? " 
 
 " Oh, for ever is a long time. Your father, 
 perhaps, won't live for ever." 
 
 " Perhaps not." 
 
 " I am sure you appreciate you understand 
 even though your heart bleeds," said Mrs. Penniman. 
 " You doubtless think him too scrupulous. So do 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 41 
 
 I, but I respect his scruples. What he asks of you 
 is that you should do the same." 
 
 Catherine was still gazing at her aunt, but she 
 spoke, at last, as if she had not heard or not under- 
 stood her. " It has been a regular plan, then. He 
 has broken it off deliberately; he has given me up." 
 
 " For the present, dear Catherine. He has put 
 it off, only." 
 
 " He has left me alone," Catherine went on. 
 
 " Haven't you me ?" asked Mrs. Penniman, with 
 much expression. 
 
 Catherine shook her head slowly. " I don't 
 believe it !" and she left the room. 
 
XXXI. 
 
 THOUGH she had forced herself to be calm, she pre- 
 ferred practising this virtue in private, and she 
 forbore to show herself at tea a repast which, on 
 Sundays, at six o'clock, took the place of dinner. 
 Dr. Sloper and his sister sat face to face, but Mrs. 
 Penniman never met her brother's eye. Late in the 
 evening she went with him, but without Catherine, 
 to their sister Almond's, where, between the two 
 ladies, Catherine's unhappy situation was discussed 
 with a frankness that was conditioned by a good 
 deal of mysterious reticence on Mrs. Penniman's part. 
 
 " I am delighted he is not to marry her," said 
 Mrs. Almond, "but he ought to be horsewhipped 
 all the same." 
 
 Mrs. Penniman, who was shocked at her sister's 
 coarseness, replied that he had been actuated by the 
 noblest of motives the desire not to impoverish 
 Catherine. 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 43 
 
 " I am very happy that Catherine is not to be 
 impoverished but I hope he may never have a 
 penny too much! And what does the poor girl 
 say to you ?" Mrs. Almond asked. 
 
 " She says I have a genuis for consolation," said 
 Mrs. Penniman. 
 
 This was the account of the matter that she 
 gave to her sister, and it was perhaps with the 
 consciousness of genius that, on her return that 
 evening to Washington Square, she again presented 
 herself for admittance at Catherine's door. Catherine 
 came and opened it ; she was apparently very quiet. 
 
 "I only want to give you a little word of 
 advice," she said. "If your father asks you, say 
 that everything is going on." 
 
 Catherine stood there, with her hand on the 
 knob, looking at her aunt, but not asking her to 
 come in. " Do you think he will ask me ? " 
 
 " I am sure he will. He asked me just now, 
 on our way home from your Aunt Elizabeth's. I 
 explained the whole thing to your Aunt Elizabeth. 
 I said to your father I know nothing about it." 
 
 "Do you think he will ask me, when he sees 
 when he sees ?" But here Catherine stopped. 
 
44 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 "The more he sees, the more disagreeable he 
 will be," said her aunt. 
 
 "He shall see as little as possible!" Catherine 
 declared. 
 
 " Tell him you are to be married." 
 
 "So I am," said Catherine, softly; and she 
 closed the door upon her aunt. 
 
 She could not have said this two days later 
 for instance, on Tuesday, when she at last received 
 a letter from Morris Townsend. It was an epistle 
 of considerable length, measuring five large square 
 pages, and written at Philadelphia. It was an 
 explanatory document, and it explained a great 
 many things, chief among which were the con- 
 siderations that had led the writer to take advan- 
 tage of an urgent " professional " absence to try and 
 banish from his mind the image of one whose path 
 he had crossed only to scatter it with ruins. He 
 ventured to expect but partial success in this 
 attempt, but he could promise her that, whatever 
 his failure, he would never again interpose between 
 her generous heart and her brilliant prospects and 
 filial duties. He closed with an intimation that 
 his professional pursuits might compel him to travel 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 45 
 
 for some months, and with the hope that when they 
 should each have accommodated themselves to what 
 was sternly involved in their respective positions 
 even should this result not be reached for years 
 they should meet as friends, as fellow-sufferers, as 
 innocent but philosophic victims of a great social 
 law. That her life should be peaceful and happy 
 was the dearest wish of him who ventured still 
 to subscribe himself her most obedient servant. 
 The letter was beautifully written, and Catherine 
 who kept it for many years after this, was able, 
 when her sense of the bitterness of its meaning and 
 the hollowness of its tone had grown less acute, to 
 admire its grace of expression. At present, for a 
 long time after she received it, all she had to help 
 her was the determination, daily more rigid, to 
 make no appeal to the compassion of her father. 
 
 He suffered a week to elapse, and then one day, 
 in the morning, at an hour at which she rarely saw 
 him, he strolled into the back-parlour. He had 
 watched his time, and he found her alone. She 
 was sitting with some work, and he came and stood 
 in front of her. He was going out, he had on his 
 hat and was drawing on his gloves. 
 
46 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 " It doesn't seem to me that you are treating me 
 just now with all the consideration I deserve/' he 
 said in a moment. 
 
 " I don't know what I have done," Catherine 
 answered, with her eyes on her work. 
 
 " You have apparently quite banished from your 
 mind the request I made you at Liverpool, before 
 we sailed; the request that you would notify me in 
 advance before leaving my house." 
 
 "I have not left your house !" said Catherine. 
 
 " But you intend to leave it, and by what you 
 gave me to understand, your departure must be 
 impending. In fact, though you are still here in 
 body, you are already absent in spirit. Your mind 
 has taken up its residence with your prospective 
 husband, and you might quite as well be lodged 
 under the conjugal roof, for all the benefit we get 
 from your society." 
 
 " I will try and be more cheerful!" said Catherine. 
 
 "-You certainly ought to be cheerful, you ask a 
 great deal if you are not. To the pleasure of 
 marrying a brilliant young man, you add that of 
 having your own way; you strike me as a very 
 lucky young lady ! " 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 47 
 
 Catherine got up ; she was suffocating. But 
 she folded her work, deliberately and correctly, 
 bending her burning face upon it. Her father 
 stood where he had planted himself; she hoped he 
 would go, but he smoothed and buttoned his gloves, 
 and then he rested his hands upon his hips. 
 
 " It would be a convenience to me to know 
 when I may expect to have an empty house/' he 
 went on. " When you go, your aunt marches." 
 
 She looked at him at last, with a long silent 
 gaze, which, in spite of her pride and her resolution, 
 uttered part of the appeal she had tried not to 
 make. Her father's cold gray eye sounded her own, 
 and he insisted on his point. 
 
 "Is it to-morrow? Is it next week, or the 
 week after?" 
 
 " I shall not go away !" said Catherine. 
 
 The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Has he 
 backed out ?" 
 
 " I have broken off my engagement." 
 
 "Broken it off?" 
 
 " I have asked him to leave New York, and he 
 has gone away for a long time." 
 
 The Doctor was both puzzled and disappointed, 
 
48 WASHINGTON SQUAKE. 
 
 but he solved Ms perplexity by saying to himself 
 that his daughter simply misrepresented justifiably, 
 if one would, but nevertheless, misrepresented the 
 facts ; and he eased off his disappointment, which 
 was that of a man losing a chance for a little 
 triumph that he had rather counted on, by a few 
 words that he uttered aloud. 
 
 " How does he take his dismissal ? " 
 
 " I don't know ! " said Catherine, less ingeniously 
 than she had hitherto spoken. 
 
 " You mean you don't care ? You are rather 
 cruel, after encouraging him and playing with him 
 for so long ! " 
 
 The Doctor had his revenge after all. 
 
XXXII. 
 
 OUR story has hitherto moved with very short steps, 
 but as it approaches its termination it must take 
 a long stride. As time went on, it might have 
 appeared to the Doctor that his daughter's account 
 of her rupture with Morris Townsend, mere bravado 
 as he had deemed it, was in some degree justified 
 by the sequel. Morris remained as rigidly and 
 unremittingly absent as if he had died of a broken 
 heart, and Catherine had apparently buried the 
 memory of this fruitless episode as deep as if it had 
 terminated by her own choice. We know that she 
 had been deeply and incurably wounded, but the 
 Doctor had no means of knowing it. He was 
 certainly curious about it, and would have given a 
 good deal to discover the exact truth ; but it was 
 his punishment that he never knew his punish- 
 ment, I mean, for the abuse of sarcasm in his re- 
 lations with his daughter. There was a good deal 
 
 VOL. II. E 
 
50 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 of effective sarcasm in her keeping him in the dark, 
 and the rest of the world conspired with her, in 
 this sense, to be sarcastic. Mrs. Penniman told 
 him nothing, partly because he never questioned 
 her he made too light of Mrs. Penniman for that 
 and partly because she flattered herself that a 
 tormenting reserve, and a serene profession of igno- 
 rance, would avenge her for his theory that she had 
 meddled in the matter. He went two or three times 
 to see Mrs. Montgomery, but Mrs. Montgomery had 
 nothing to impart. She simply knew that her 
 brother's engagement was broken off, and now that 
 Miss Sloper was out of danger, she preferred not to 
 bear witness in any way against Morris. She had 
 done so before however unwillingly because she 
 was sorry for Miss Sloper ; but she was not sorry 
 for Miss Sloper now not at all sorry. Morris had 
 told her nothing about his relations with Miss 
 Sloper at the time, and he had told her nothing since. 
 He was always away, and he very seldom wrote to 
 her ; she believed he had gone to California. Mrs. 
 Almond had, in her sister's phrase, " taken up " 
 Catherine violently since the recent catastrophe; 
 but though the girl was very grateful to her for her 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 51 
 
 kindness, she revealed no secrets, and the good lady 
 could give the Doctor no satisfaction. Even, how- 
 ever, had she been able to narrate to him the 
 private history of his daughter's unhappy love-affair, 
 it would have given her a certain comfort to leave 
 him in ignorance; for Mrs. Almond was at this 
 time not altogether in sympathy with her brother. 
 She had guessed for herself that Catherine had 
 been cruelly jilted she knew nothing from Mrs. 
 Penniman, for Mrs. Penniman had not ventured to 
 lay the famous explanation of Morris's motives before 
 Mrs. Almond, though she had thought it good 
 enough for Catherine and she pronounced her 
 brother too consistently indifferent to what the 
 poor creature must have suffered and must still be 
 suffering. Dr. Sloper had his theory, and he rarely 
 altered his theories. The marriage would have 
 been an abominable one, and the girl had had a 
 blessed escape. She was not to be pitied for that, 
 and to pretend to condole with her would have 
 been to make concessions to the idea that she had 
 ever had a right to think of Morris. 
 
 , " I put my foot on this idea from the first, and I 
 keep it there now," said the Doctor. " I don't see 
 
52 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 anything cruel in that ; one can't keep it there too 
 long." To this Mrs. Almond more than once replied 
 that if Catherine had got rid of her incongruous lover, 
 she deserved the credit of it, and that to bring 
 herself to her father's enlightened view of the 
 matter must have cost her an effort that he was 
 bound to appreciate. 
 
 " I am by no means sure she has got rid of him/' 
 the Doctor said. " There is not the smallest proba- 
 bility that, after having been as obstinate as a mule for 
 two years, she suddenly became amenable to reason. 
 It is infinitely more probable that he got rid of her." 
 
 " All the more reason you should be gentle with 
 her." 
 
 "I am gentle with her. But I can't do the 
 pathetic ; I can't pump up tears, to look graceful, over 
 the most fortunate thing that ever happened to her." 
 
 " You have no sympathy," said Mrs. .Almond ; 
 " that was never your strong point. You have only 
 to look at her to see that, right or wrong, and whether 
 the rupture came from herself or from him, her poor 
 little heart is grievously bruised." 
 
 " Handling bruises and even dropping tears on 
 them doesn't make them any better ! My business 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 53 
 
 is to see she gets no more knocks, and that I shall 
 carefully attend to. But I don't at all recognise 
 your description of Catherine. She doesn't strike 
 me in the least as a young woman going about in 
 search of a moral poultice. In fact, she seems to 
 me much better than while the fellow was hanging 
 about. She is perfectly comfortable and blooming; 
 she eats and sleeps, takes her usual exercise, and 
 overloads herself, as usual, with finery. She is 
 always knitting some purse or embroidering some 
 handkerchief, and it seems to me she turns these 
 articles out about as fast as ever. She hasn't much 
 to say ; but when had she anything to say ? She 
 had her little dance, and now she is sitting down to 
 rest. I suspect that, on the whole, she enjoys it." 
 
 " She enjoys it as people enjoy getting rid of 
 a leg that has been crushed. The state of mind after 
 amputation is doubtless one of comparative repose." 
 
 " If your leg is a metaphor for young Townsend, I 
 can assure you he has never been crushed. Crushed ? 
 Not he ! He is alive and perfectly intact, and that's 
 why I am not satisfied." 
 
 "Should you have liked to kill him?" asked 
 Mrs. Almond. 
 
54 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 "Yes, very much. I think it is quite possible 
 that it is all a blind." 
 
 "A blind?" 
 
 " An arrangement between them. H fait le mort, 
 as they say in France ; but he is looking out of the 
 corner of his eye. You can depend upon it he has 
 not burned his ships ; he has kept one to come back 
 in. When I am dead, he will set sail again, and 
 then she will marry him." 
 
 " It is interesting to know that you accuse your 
 only daughter of being the vilest of hypocrites," said 
 Mrs. Almond. 
 
 "I don't see what difference her being my only 
 daughter makes. It is better to accuse one than a 
 dozen. But I don't accuse any one. There is not 
 the smallest hypocrisy about Catherine, and I deny 
 that she even pretends to be miserable." 
 
 The Doctor's idea that the thing was a "blind" 
 had its intermissions and revivals ; but it may be said 
 on the whole to have increased as he grew older; 
 together with his impression of Catherine's blooming 
 and comfortable condition. Naturally, if he had not 
 found grounds for viewing her as a lovelorn maiden 
 during the year or two that followed her great trouble, 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 55 
 
 he found none at a time when she had completely 
 recovered her self-possession. He was obliged to 
 recognise the fact that if the two young people were 
 waiting for him to get out of the way, they were at 
 least waiting very patiently. He had heard from 
 time to time that Morris was in New York; but he 
 never remained there long, and, to the best of the 
 Doctor's belief, had no communication with Catherine. 
 He was sure they never met, and he had reason to 
 suspect that Morris never wrote to her. After the 
 letter that has been mentioned, she heard from him 
 twice again, at considerable intervals ; but on none 
 of these occasions did she write herself. On the 
 other hand, as the Doctor observed, she averted 
 herself rigidly from the idea of marrying other 
 people. Her opportunities for doing so were not 
 numerous, but they occurred often enough to test her 
 disposition. She refused a widower, a man with a 
 genial temperament, a handsome fortune, and three 
 little girls (he had heard that she was very fond of 
 children, and he pointed to his own with some 
 confidence) ; and she turned a deaf ear to the solicita- 
 tions of a clever young lawyer, who, with the prospect 
 of a great practice, and the reputation of a most 
 
56 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 agreeable man, had had the shrewdness, when he 
 came to look about him for a wife, to believe that 
 she would suit him better than several younger and 
 prettier girls. Mr. Macalister, the widower, had 
 desired to make a marriage of reason, and had chosen 
 Catherine for what he supposed to be her latent 
 matronly qualities; but John Ludlow, who was a 
 year the girl's junior, and spoken of always as a 
 young man who might have his " pick," was seriously 
 in love with her. Catherine, however, would never 
 look at him; she made it plain to him that she 
 thought he came to see her too often. He after- 
 wards consoled himself, and married a very different 
 person, little Miss Sturtevant, whose attractions were 
 obvious to the dullest comprehension. Catherine, at 
 the time of these events, had left her thirtieth year 
 well behind her, and had quite taken her place as 
 an old maid. Her father would have preferred she 
 should marry, and he once told her that he hoped she 
 would not be too fastidious. " I should like to see 
 you an honest man's wife before I die," he said. 
 This was after John Ludlow had been compelled to give 
 it up, though the Doctor had advised him to persevere. 
 The Doctor exercised no further pressure, and had 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 57 
 
 the credit of not " worrying" at all over his daughter's 
 singleness. In fact he worried rather more than 
 appeared, and there were considerable periods during 
 which he felt sure that Morris Townsend was hidden 
 behind some door. " If he is not, why doesn't she 
 marry ? " he asked himself. " Limited as her in- 
 telligence may be, she must understand perfectly well 
 that she is made to do the usual thing." Catherine, 
 however, became an admirable old maid. She 
 formed habits, regulated her days upon a system of 
 her own, interested herself in charitable institutions, 
 asylums, hospitals, and aid - societies ; and went 
 generally, with an even and noiseless step, about 
 the rigid business of her life. This life had, how- 
 ever, a secret history as well as a public one if I 
 may talk of the public history of a mature and 
 diffident spinster for whom publicity had always a 
 combination of terrors. From her own point of 
 view the great facts of her career were that Morris 
 Townsend had trifled with her affection, and that her 
 father had broken its spring. Nothing could ever 
 alter these facts ; they were always there, like her 
 name, her age, her plain face. Nothing could ever 
 undo the wrong or cure the pain that Morris had 
 
58 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 inflicted on her, and nothing could ever make her 
 feel towards her father as she felt in her younger 
 years. There was something dead in her life, and 
 her duty was to try and fill the void. Catherine 
 recognised this duty to the utmost; she had a great 
 disapproval of brooding and moping. She had of 
 course no faculty for quenching memory in dissip- 
 ation ; but she mingled freely in the usual gaieties of 
 the town, and she became at last an inevitable figure 
 at all respectable entertainments. She was greatly 
 liked, and as time went on she grew to be a sort 
 of kindly maiden -aunt to the younger portion of 
 society. Young girls were apt to confide to her 
 their love-affairs (which they never did to Mrs. 
 Penniman), and young men to be fond of her with- 
 out knowing why. She developed a few harmless 
 eccentricities ; her habits, once formed, were rather 
 stiffly maintained; her opinions, on all moral and 
 social matters, were extremely conservative ; and 
 before she was forty she was regarded as an old- 
 fashioned person, and an authority on customs that 
 had passed away. Mrs. Penniman, in comparison, 
 was quite a girlish figure ; she grew younger as she 
 advanced in life. She lost none of her relish for 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 59 
 
 beauty and mystery, but she had little opportunity 
 to exercise it. With Catherine's later wooers she 
 failed to establish relations as intimate as those 
 which had given her so many interesting hours in 
 the society of Morris Townsend. These gentlemen 
 had an indefinable mistrust of her good offices, and 
 they never talked to her about Catherine's charms. 
 Her ringlets, her buckles and bangles glistened 
 more brightly with each succeeding year, and she 
 remained quite the same officious and imaginative 
 Mrs. Penniman, and the odd mixture of impetuosity 
 and circumspection, that we have hitherto known. 
 As regards one point, however, her circumspection 
 prevailed, and she must be given due credit for it. 
 Tor upwards of seventeen years she never mentioned 
 Morris Townsend's name to her niece. Catherine 
 was grateful to her, but this consistent silence, so 
 little in accord with her aunt's character, gave her a 
 certain alarm, and she could never wholly rid herself 
 of a suspicion that Mrs. Penniman sometimes had 
 news of him. 
 
XXXIII. 
 
 LITTLE by little Dr. Sloper had retired from his 
 profession ; he visited only those patients in whose 
 symptoms he recognised a certain originality. He went 
 again to Europe, and remained two years ; Catherine 
 went with him, and on this occasion Mrs. Penniman 
 was of the party. Europe apparently had few 
 surprises for Mrs. Penniman, who frequently re- 
 marked, in the most romantic sites " You know I 
 am very familiar with all this." It should be added 
 that such remarks were usually not addressed to 
 her brother, or yet to her niece, but to fellow- 
 tourists who happened to be at hand, or even to the 
 cicerone or the goat-herd in the foreground. 
 
 One day, after his return from Europe, the 
 Doctor said something to his daughter that made her 
 start it seemed to come from so far out of the past. 
 
 " I should like you to promise me something 
 before I die." 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 61 
 
 " Why do you talk about your dying ?" she asked. 
 
 " Because I am sixty-eight years old." 
 
 " I hope you will live a long tune," said 
 Catherine. 
 
 " I hope I shall ! But some day I shall take a 
 bad cold, and then it will not matter much what 
 any one hopes. That will be the manner of my 
 exit, and when it takes place, remember I told you 
 so. Promise me not to marry Morris Townsend 
 after I am gone." 
 
 This was what made Catherine start, as I have 
 said ; but her start was a silent one, and for some 
 moments she said nothing. " Why do you speak of 
 him ? " she asked at last. 
 
 "You challenge everything I say. I speak of 
 him because he's a topic, like any other. He's to 
 be seen, like any one else, and he is still looking for 
 a w if e having had one and got rid of her, I don't 
 know by what means. He has lately been in New 
 York, and at your cousin Marian's house; your 
 Aunt Elizabeth saw him there." 
 
 " They neither of them told me," said Catherine. 
 
 "That's their merit; it's not yours. He has 
 grown fat and bald, and he has not made his 
 
62 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 fortune. But I can't trust those facts alone to 
 steel your heart against him, and that's why I ask 
 you to promise." 
 
 " Fat and bald :" these words presented a strange 
 image to Catherine's mind, out of which the memory 
 of the most beautiful young man in the world had 
 never faded. " I don't think you understand," she 
 said. " I very seldom think of Mr. Townsend." 
 
 " It will be very easy for you to go on, then. 
 Promise me, after my death, to do the same." 
 
 Again, for some moments, Catherine was silent ; 
 her father's request deeply amazed her ; it opened 
 an old wound and made it ache afresh. " I don't 
 think I can promise that," she answered. 
 
 " It would be a great satisfaction," said her 
 father. 
 
 " You don't understand. T can't promise that." 
 
 The Doctor was silent a minute. " I ask you 
 for a particular reason. I am altering my will." 
 
 This reason failed to strike Catherine ; and indeed 
 she scarcely understood it. All her feelings were 
 merged in the sense that he was trying to treat her 
 as he had treated her years before. She had suffered 
 from it then; and now all her experience, all her 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 63 
 
 acquired tranquillity and rigidity, protested. She 
 had been so humble in her youth that she could 
 now afford to have a little pride, and there was 
 something in this request, and in her father's think- 
 ing himself so free to make it, that seemed an injury 
 to her dignity. Poor Catherine's dignity was not 
 aggressive ; it never sat in state ; but if you pushed 
 far enough you could find it. Her father had pushed 
 very far. 
 
 " I can't promise," she simply repeated. 
 
 " You are very obstinate," said the Doctor. 
 
 " I don't think you understand." 
 
 " Please explain, then." 
 
 " I can't explain," said Catherine. " And I can't 
 promise." 
 
 " Upon my word," her father exclaimed, " I had 
 no idea how obstinate you are ! " 
 
 She knew herself that she was obstinate, and it 
 gave her a certain joy. She was now a middle-aged 
 woman. 
 
 About a year after this, the accident that the 
 Doctor had spoken of occurred ; he took a violent 
 cold. Driving out to Bloomingdale one April day 
 to see a patient of unsound mind, who was confined 
 
64 . WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 in a private asylum for the insane, and whose family 
 greatly desired a medical opinion from an eminent 
 source, he was caught in a spring shower, and being 
 in a buggy, without a hood, he found himself soaked 
 to the skin. He came home with an ominous chill, 
 and on the morrow he was seriously ill. " It is 
 congestion of the lungs," he said to Catherine ; " I 
 shall need very good nursing. It will make no 
 difference, for I shall not recover ; but I wish every- 
 thing to be done, to the smallest detail, as if I should. 
 I hate an ill-conducted sick-room ; and you will be 
 so good as to nurse me on the hypothesis that I 
 shall get well." He told her which of his fellow- 
 physicians to send for, and gave her a multitude of 
 minute directions; it was quite on the optimistic 
 hypothesis that she nursed him. But he had never 
 been wrong in his life, and he was not wrong now. 
 He was touching his seventieth year, and though 
 he had a very well-tempered constitution, his hold 
 upon life had lost its firmness. He died after 
 three weeks' illness, during which Mrs. Penniman, 
 as well as his daughter, had been assiduous at his 
 bedside. 
 
 On his will being opened after a decent interval, 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 65 
 
 it was found to consist of two portions. The first 
 of these dated from ten years back, and consisted of 
 a series of dispositions by which he left the great 
 mass of property to his daughter, with becoming 
 legacies to his two sisters. The second was a 
 codicil, of recent origin, maintaining the annuities to 
 Mrs. Penniman and Mrs. Almond, but reducing 
 Catherine's share to a fifth of what he had first 
 bequeathed her. " She is amply provided for from 
 her mother's side," the document ran, " never having 
 spent more than a fraction of her income from this 
 source ; so that her fortune is already more than 
 sufficient to attract those unscrupulous adventurers 
 whom she has given me reason to believe that she 
 persists in regarding as an interesting class." The 
 large remainder of his property, therefore, Dr. Sloper 
 had divided into seven unequal parts, which he 
 left, as endowments, to as many different hospi- 
 tals and shools of medicine, in various cities of the 
 Union. 
 
 To Mrs. Penniman it seemed monstrous that a 
 man should play such tricks with other people's 
 money; for after his death, of course, as she said, 
 it was other people's. " Of course you will 
 
 VOL. n. F 
 
66 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 dispute the will," she remarked, fatuously, to 
 Catherine. 
 
 " Oh no," Catherine answered, " I like it very 
 much. Only I wish it had been expressed a little 
 differently ! " 
 
XXXIV. 
 
 IT was her habit to remain in town very late in the 
 summer ; she preferred the house in Washington 
 Square to any other habitation whatever, and it was 
 under protest that she used to go to the seaside for 
 the month of August. At the sea she spent her 
 month at an hotel. The year that her father died 
 she intermitted this custom altogether, not thinking 
 it consistent with deep mourning ; and the year after 
 that she put off her departure till so late that the 
 middle of August found her still in the heated soli- 
 tude of Washington Square. Mrs. Penniman, who 
 was fond of a change, was usually eager for a visit 
 to the country; but this year she appeared quite 
 content with such rural impressions as she could 
 gather, at the parlour window, from the ailantus- 
 trees behind the wooden paling. The peculiar fra- 
 grance of this ^vegetation used to diffuse itself in the 
 evening air, and Mrs. Penniman, on the warm nights 
 
68 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 of July, often sat at the open window and inhaled 
 it. This was a happy moment for Mrs. Penniman ; 
 after the death of her brother she felt more free to 
 obey her impulses. A vague oppression had dis- 
 appeared from her life, and she enjoyed a sense of 
 freedom of which she had not been conscious since 
 the memorable time, so long ago, when the Doctor 
 went abroad with Catherine and left her at home to 
 entertain Morris Townsend. The year that had elapsed 
 since her brother's death reminded her of that happy 
 time, because, although Catherine, in growing older, 
 had become a person to be reckoned with, yet her 
 society was a very different thing, as Mrs. Penniman 
 said, from that of a tank of cold water. The elder 
 lady hardly knew what use to make of this larger 
 margin of her life ; she sat and looked at it very 
 much as she had often sat, with her poised needle in 
 her hand, before her tapestry-frame. She had a con- 
 fident hope, however, that her rich impulses, her talent 
 for embroidery, would still find their application, and 
 this confidence was justified before many months had 
 elapsed. 
 
 Catherine continued to live in her father's house 
 in spite of its being represented to her that a maiden- 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 69 
 
 lady of quiet habits might find a more convenient 
 abode in one of the smaller dwellings, with brown 
 stone fronts, which had at this time begun to adorn 
 the transverse thoroughfares in the upper part of the 
 town. She liked the earlier structure it had begun 
 by this time to be called an "old" house and 
 proposed to herself to end her days in it. If it was 
 too large for a pair of unpretending gentlewomen, 
 this was better than the opposite fault ; for Catherine 
 had no desire to find herself in closer quarters with 
 her aunt. She expected to spend the rest of her 
 life in Washington Square, and to enjoy Mrs. 
 Penniman's society for the whole of this period ; as 
 she had a conviction that, long as she might live, 
 her aunt would live at least as long, and always 
 retain her brilliancy and activity. Mrs. Penniman 
 suggested to her the idea of a rich vitality. 
 
 On one of those warm evenings in July of which 
 mention has been made, the two ladies sat together 
 at an open window, looking out on the quiet Square. 
 It was too hot for lighted lamps, for reading, or for 
 work ; it might have appeared too hot even for con- 
 versation, Mrs. Penniman having long been speech- 
 less. She sat forward in the window, half on the 
 
70 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 balcony, humming a little song. Catherine was 
 within the room, in a low rocking-chair, dressed in 
 white, and slowly using a large palmetto fan. It 
 was in this way, at this season, that the aunt and 
 niece, after they had had tea, habitually spent their 
 evenings. 
 
 " Catherine," said Mrs. Penniman at last, " I am 
 going to say something that will surprise you." 
 
 " Pray do," Catherine answered ; " I like sur- 
 prises. And it is so quiet now." 
 
 " Well, then, I have seen Morris Townsend." 
 
 If Catherine was surprised, she checked the 
 expression of it ; she gave neither a start nor an 
 exclamation. She remained, indeed, for some 
 moments intensely still, and this may very well 
 have been a symptom of emotion. " I hope he was 
 well," she said at last. 
 
 " I don't know ; he is a great deal changed. He 
 would like very much to see you." 
 
 " I would rather not see him," said Catherine, 
 quickly. 
 
 "I was afraid you would say that. But you 
 don't seem surprised ! " 
 
 " I am very much." 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 71 
 
 " I met him at Marian's," said Mrs. Penniman. 
 " He goes to Marian's, and they are so afraid you 
 will meet him there. It's my belief that that's why 
 he goes. He wants so much to see you." Catherine 
 made no response to this, and Mrs. Penniman went 
 on. " I didn't know him at first ; he is so remark- 
 ably changed. But he knew me in a minute. He 
 says I am not in the least changed. You know how 
 polite he always was. He was coming away when 
 I came, and we walked a little distance together. 
 He is still very handsome, only, of course, he looks 
 older, and he is not so so animated as he used to 
 be. There was a touch of sadness about him ; but 
 there was a touch of sadness about him, before 
 especially when he went away. I am afraid he has 
 not been very successful that he has never got 
 thoroughly established. I don't suppose he is 
 sufficiently plodding, and that, after all, is what 
 succeeds in this world." Mrs. Penniman had not 
 mentioned Moras Townsend's name to her niece for 
 upwards of the fifth of a century ; but now that she 
 had broken the spell, she seemed to wish to make 
 up for lost time, as if there had been a sort of 
 exhilaration in hearing herself talk of him. She 
 
72 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 proceeded, however, with considerable caution, paus- 
 ing occasionally to let Catherine give some sign. 
 Catherine gave no other sign than to stop the 
 rocking of her chair and the swaying of her fan ; 
 she sat motionless and silent. " It was on Tuesday 
 last," said Mrs. Penniman, " and I have been hesi- 
 tating ever since about telling you. I didn't know 
 how you might like it. At last I thought that it 
 was so long ago that you would probably not have 
 any particular feeling. I saw him again, after 
 meeting him at Marian's. I met him in the street, 
 and he went a few steps with me. The first thing 
 he said was about you; he asked ever so many 
 questions. Marian didn't want me to speak to you; 
 she didn't want you to know that they receive him. 
 I told him I was sure that after all these years you 
 couldn't have any feeling about that ; you couldn't 
 grudge him the hospitality of his own cousin's house. 
 I said you would be bitter indeed if you did that. 
 Marian has the most extraordinary ideas about what 
 happened between you; she seems to think he 
 behaved in some very unusual manner. I took the 
 liberty of reminding her of the real facts, and plac- 
 ing the story in its true light. He has no bitterness, 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 73 
 
 Catherine, I can assure you; and he might be 
 excused for it, for things have not gone well with 
 him. He has been all over the world, and tried to 
 establish himself everywhere ; but his evil star was 
 against him. It is most interesting to hear him 
 talk of his evil star. Everything failed ; everything 
 but his you know, you remember his proud, high 
 spirit. I believe he married some lady somewhere 
 in Europe. You know they marry in such a peculiar 
 matter-of-course way in Europe; a marriage of 
 reason they call it. She died soon afterwards ; as 
 he said to me, she only flitted across his life. He 
 has not been in New York for ten years ; he came 
 back a few days ago. The first thing he did was to 
 ask me about you. He had heard you had never 
 married; he seemed very much interested about 
 that. He said you had been the real romance of 
 his life." 
 
 Catherine had suffered her companion to proceed 
 from point to point, and pause to pause, without 
 interrupting her ; she fixed her eyes on the ground 
 and listened. But the last phrase I have quoted 
 was followed by a pause of peculiar significance, 
 and then, at last, Catherine spoke. It will be 
 
74 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 observed that before doing so she had received a 
 good deal of information about Morris Townsend. 
 " Please say no more ; please don't follow up that 
 subject." 
 
 " Doesn't it interest you ? " asked Mrs. Penni- 
 man, with a certain timorous archness. 
 
 "It pains me," said Catherine. 
 
 " I was afraid you would say that. But don't 
 you think you could get used to it ? He wants so 
 much to see you." 
 
 " Please don't, Aunt Lavinia," said Catherine, 
 getting up from her seat. She moved quickly 
 away, and went to the other window, which stood 
 open to the balcony ; and here, in the embrasure, 
 concealed from her aunt by the white curtains, she 
 remained a long time, looking out into the warm 
 darkness. She had had a great shock ; it was as if 
 the gulf of the past had suddenly opened, and a 
 spectral figure had risen out of it. There were 
 some things she believed she had got over, some 
 feelings that she had thought of as dead ; but 
 apparently there was a certain vitality in them still. 
 Mrs. Penniman had made them stir themselves. 
 It was but a momentary agitation, Catherine said 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 75 
 
 to herself; it would presently pass away. She 
 was trembling, and her heart was beating so that 
 she could feel it; but this also would subside. 
 Then, suddenly, while she waited for a return of 
 her calmness, she burst into tears. But her tears 
 flowed very silently, so that Mrs. Penniman had no 
 observation of them. It was perhaps, however, be- 
 cause Mrs. Penniman suspected them that she said 
 no more that evening about Morris Townsend. 
 
XXXV. 
 
 HER refreshed attention to this gentleman had not 
 those limits of which Catherine desired, for herself, 
 to be conscious ; it lasted long enough to enable 
 her to wait another week before speaking of him 
 again. It was under the same circumstances that 
 she once more attacked the subject. She had been 
 sitting with her niece in the evening ; only on this 
 occasion, as the night was not so warm, the lamp 
 had been lighted, and Catherine had placed herself 
 near it with a morsel of fancy-work. Mrs. Pen- 
 niman went and sat alone for half an hour on the 
 balcony ; then she came in, moving vaguely about 
 the room. At last she sank into a seat near 
 Catherine, with clasped hands, and a little look of 
 excitement. 
 
 " Shall you be angry if I speak to you again 
 about him ? " she asked. 
 
 Catherine looked up at her quietly. " Who is he ?" 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 77 
 
 " He whom you once loved." . 
 
 " I shall not be angry, but I shall not like it." 
 
 " He sent you a message," said Mrs. Penniman. 
 " I promised him to deliver it, and I must keep my 
 promise." 
 
 In all these years Catherine had had time to 
 forget how little she had to thank her aunt for in 
 the season of her misery ; she had long ago for- 
 given Mrs. Penniman for taking too much upon 
 herself. But for a moment this attitude of in- 
 terposition and disinterestedness, this carrying of 
 messages and redeeming of promises, brought back 
 the sense that her companion was a dangerous 
 woman. She had said she would not be angry ; 
 but for an instant she felt sore. "I don't care 
 what you do with your promise ! " she answered. 
 
 Mrs. Penniman, however, with her high con- 
 ception of the sanctity of pledges, carried her point. 
 " I have gone too far to retreat," she said, though 
 precisely what this meant she was not at pains to 
 explain. " Mr. Townsend wishes most particularly 
 to see you, Catherine ; he believes that if you knew 
 how much, and why, he wishes it, you would 
 consent to do so." 
 
78 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 " There can be no reason," said Catherine ; " no 
 good reason." 
 
 " His happiness depends upon it. Is not that a 
 good reason?" asked Mrs. Penniman, impressively. 
 
 " Not for me. My happiness does not." 
 
 " I think you will be happier after you have 
 seen him. He is going away again going to 
 resume his wanderings. It is a very lonely, rest- 
 less, joyless life. Before he goes, he wishes to 
 speak to you ; it is a fixed idea with him he is 
 always thinking of it. He has something very 
 important to say to you. He believes that you 
 never understood him that you never judged him 
 rightly, and the belief has always weighed upon 
 him terribly. He wishes to justify himself; he 
 believes that in a very few words he could do so. 
 He wishes to meet you as a friend." 
 
 Catherine listened to this wonderful speech, 
 without pausing in her work ; she had now had 
 several days to accustom herself to think of Morris 
 Townsend again as an actuality. When it was 
 over she said simply, " Please say to Mr. Townsend 
 that I wish he would leave me alone." 
 
 She had hardly spoken when a sharp, firm ring 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 79 
 
 at the door vibrated through the summer night. 
 Catherine looked up at the clock; it marked a 
 quarter-past nine a very late hour for visitors, 
 especially in the empty condition of the town. 
 Mrs. Penniman at the same moment gave a little 
 start, and then Catherine's eyes turned quickly to 
 her aunt. They met Mrs. Penniman's and sounded 
 them for a moment, sharply. Mrs. Penniman was 
 blushing ; her look was a conscious one ; it seemed 
 to confess something. Catherine guessed its mean- 
 ing, and rose quickly from her chair. 
 
 " Aunt Penniman," she said, in a tone that scared 
 her companion, "have you taken the liberty . . . ?" 
 
 " My dearest Catherine," stammered Mrs. Pen- 
 niman, " just wait till you see him ! " 
 
 Catherine had frightened her aunt, but she was 
 also frightened herself; she was on the point of 
 rushing to give orders to the servant, who was 
 passing to the door, to admit no one ; but the fear 
 of meeting her visitor checked her. 
 
 " Mr. Morris Townsend." 
 
 This was what she heard, vaguely but recognis- 
 ably articulated by the domestic, while she hesitated. 
 She had her back turned to the door of the parlour, 
 
80 -WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 and for some moments she kept it turned, feeling 
 that he had come in. He had not spoken, however, 
 and at last she faced about. Then she saw a 
 gentleman standing in the middle of the room, from 
 which her aunt had discreetly retired. 
 
 She would never have known him. He was 
 forty-five years old, and his figure was not that of 
 the straight, slim young man she remembered. But 
 it was a very fine person, and a fair and lustrous 
 beard, spreading itself upon a well-presented chest, 
 contributed to its effect. After a moment Catherine 
 recognised the upper half of the face, which, though 
 her visitor's clustering locks had grown thin, was 
 still remarkably handsome. He stood in a deeply 
 deferential attitude, with his eyes on her face. 
 " I have ventured I have ventured," he said ; and 
 then he paused, looking about him, as if he expected 
 her to ask him to sit down. It was the old voice ; 
 but it had not the old charm. Catherine, for a 
 minute, was conscious of a distinct determination 
 not to invite him to take a seat. Why had he 
 come? It was wrong for him to come. Morris 
 was embarrassed, but Catherine gave him no help. 
 It was not that she was glad of his embarrassment ; 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 81 
 
 on the contrary, it excited all her own liabilities of 
 this kind, and gave her great pain. But how 
 could she welcome him when she felt so vividly that 
 he ought not to have come ? "I wanted so much 
 I was determined," Morris went on. But he 
 stopped again; it was not easy. Catherine still 
 said nothing, and he may well have recalled with 
 apprehension her ancient faculty of silence. She 
 continued to look at him, however, and as she did 
 so she made the strangest observation. It seemed 
 to be he, and yet not he ; it was the man who had 
 been everything, and yet this person was nothing. 
 How long ago it was how old she had grown 
 how much she had lived ! She had lived on 
 something that was connected with him, and she 
 had consumed it in doing so. This person did not 
 look unhappy. He was fair and well-preserved, 
 perfectly dressed, mature and complete. As Cathe- 
 rine looked at him, the story of his life defined 
 itself in his eyes : he had made himself comfortable, 
 and he had never been caught. But even while 
 her perception opened itself to this, she had no 
 desire to catch him; his presence was painful to 
 her, and she only wished he would go. 
 
 VOL. II. G 
 
82 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 "Will you not sit down?" he asked. 
 
 " I think we had better not," said Catherine. 
 
 " I offend you by coming ? " He was very 
 grave ; he spoke in a tone of the richest respect. 
 
 " I don't think you ought to have come." 
 
 " Did not Mrs. Penniman tell you did she not 
 give you my message ?" 
 
 " She told me something, but I did not under- 
 stand." 
 
 "I wish you would let me tell you let me 
 speak for myself." 
 
 " I don't think it is necessary," said Catherine. 
 
 " Not for you, perhaps, but for me. It would 
 be a great satisfaction and I have not many." 
 He seemed to be coming nearer ; Catherine turned 
 away. " Can we not be friends again ?" he asked. 
 
 " We are not enemies," said Catherine. " I have 
 none but friendly feelings to you." 
 
 " Ah, I wonder whether you know the happiness 
 it gives me to hear you say that ! " Catherine 
 uttered no intimation that she measured the influence 
 of her words ; and he presently went on, " You have 
 not changed the years have passed happily for 
 you." 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 83 
 
 " They have passed very quietly," said Catherine. 
 
 " They have left no marks ; you are admirably 
 young." This time he succeeded in coming nearer 
 he was close to her ; she saw his glossy perfumed 
 beard, and his eyes above it looking strange and 
 hard. It was very different from his old from his 
 young face. If she had first seen him this way 
 she would not have liked him. It seemed to her 
 that he was smiling, or trying to smile. "Catherine," 
 he said, lowering his voice, " I have never ceased to 
 think of you." 
 
 " Please don't say those things," she answered. 
 
 "Do you hate me?" 
 
 " Oh no," said Catherine. 
 
 Something in her tone discouraged him, but in a 
 moment he recovered himself. " Have you still 
 some kindness for me, then?" 
 
 " I don't know why you have come here to ask 
 me such things ! " Catherine exclaimed. 
 
 " Because for many years it has been the desire 
 of my life that we should be friends again." 
 
 " That is impossible." 
 
 " Why so ? Not if you will allow it." 
 
 " I will not allow it ! " said Catherine. 
 
84 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 He looked at her again in silence. " I see ; my 
 presence troubles you and pains you. I will go 
 away ; but you must give me leave to come 
 again." 
 
 " Please don't come again," she said. 
 
 "Never? never?" 
 
 She made a great effort; she wished to say 
 something that would make it impossible he should 
 ever again cross her threshold. " It is wrong of you. 
 There is no propriety in it no reason for it." 
 
 " Ah, dearest lady, you do me injustice ! " cried 
 Morris Townsend. "We have only waited, and 
 now we are free." 
 
 " You treated me badly," said Catherine. 
 
 " Not if you think of it rightly. You had your 
 quiet life with your father which was just what I 
 could not make up my mind to rob you of." 
 
 " Yes ; I had that." 
 
 Morris felt it to be a considerable damage to his 
 cause that he could not add that she had had some- 
 thing more besides ; for it is needless to say that 
 he had learnt the contents of Doctor Sloper's will. 
 He was nevertheless not at a loss. " There are 
 worse fates than that !" he exclaimed with expres- 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 85 
 
 sion ; and he might have been supposed to refer to 
 Ms own unprotected situation. Then he added, with 
 a deeper tenderness, " Catherine, have you never 
 forgiven me ?" 
 
 " I forgave you years ago, but it is useless for 
 us to attempt to be friends." 
 
 "Not if we forget the past. We have still a 
 future, thank God !" 
 
 " I can't forget I don't forget," said Catherine. 
 " You treated me too badly. I felt it very much ; 
 I felt it for years." And then she went on, with 
 her wish to show him that he must not come to 
 her this way, " I can't begin again I can't take it 
 up. Everything is dead and buried. It was too 
 serious ; it made a great change in my life. I 
 never expected to see you here." 
 
 " Ah, you are angry !" cried Morris, who wished 
 immensely that he could extort some flash of passion 
 from her mildness. In that case he might hope. 
 
 "No, I am not angry. Anger does not last, 
 that way, for years. But there are other things. 
 Impressions last, when they have been strong. 
 But I can't talk." 
 
 Morris stood stroking his beard, with a clouded 
 
86 WASHINGTON SQUARE. 
 
 eye. "Why have you never married?" he asked 
 abruptly. " You have had opportunities." 
 
 "I didn't wish to marry." 
 
 " Y"es, you are rich, you are free ; you had 
 nothing to gain." 
 
 " I had nothing to gain/' said Catherine. 
 
 Morris looked vaguely round him, and gave a 
 deep sigh. " Well, I was in hopes that we might 
 still have been friends." 
 
 " I meant to tell you, by my aunt, in answer to 
 your message if you had waited for an answer 
 that it was unnecessary for you to come in that hope." 
 
 "Good-bye, then," said Morris. "Excuse my 
 indiscretion." 
 
 He bowed, and she turned away standing 
 there, averted, with her eyes on the ground, for 
 some moments after she had heard him close the 
 door of the room. 
 
 In the hall he found Mrs. Penniman, fluttered 
 and eager; she appeared to have been hovering 
 there under the irreconcilable promptings of her 
 curiosity and her dignity. 
 
 "That was a precious plan of yours!" said 
 Morris, clapping on his hat. 
 
WASHINGTON SQUARE. 87 
 
 "Is she so hard!" asked Mrs. Penniman. 
 
 "She doesn't care a button for me with her 
 confounded little dry manner." 
 
 "Was it very dry?" pursued Mrs. Penniman, 
 with solicitude. 
 
 Morris took no notice of her question ; he stood 
 musing an instant, with his hat on. " But why the 
 deuce, then, would she never marry?" 
 
 "Yes why indeed?" sighed Mrs. Penniman. 
 And then, as if from a sense of the inadequacy of 
 this explanation, " But you will not despair you 
 will come back ?" 
 
 "Comeback? Damnation!" And Morris Town- 
 send strode out of the house, leaving Mrs. Penniman 
 staring. 
 
 Catherine, meanwhile, in the parlour, picking up 
 her morsel of fancy-work, had seated herself with it 
 again for life, as it were. 
 
THE PENSION BEAUEEPAS. 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 I. 
 
 I WAS not rich on the contrary ; and I had been 
 told the Pension Beaurepas was cheap. I had, more- 
 over, been told that a boarding-house is a capital 
 place for the study of human nature. I had a 
 fancy for a literary career, and a friend of mine 
 had said to me, "If you mean to write you ought to 
 go and live in a boarding-house ; there is no other 
 such place to pick up material." I had read some- 
 thing of this kind in a letter addressed by Stendhal 
 to his sister : " I have a passionate desire to know 
 human nature, and have a great mind to live in a 
 boarding-house, where people cannot conceal their 
 real characters." I was an admirer of La Char- 
 treuse de Parme, and it appeared to me that one 
 could not do better than follow in the footsteps of 
 its author. I remembered, too, the magnificent 
 
92 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 boarding-house in Balzac's Pere Goriot, the "pen- 
 sion lourgeoise des deux sexes et autres" kept by 
 Madame Vauquer, nee De Confians. Magnificent, 
 I mean, as a piece of portraiture; the establish- 
 ment, as an establishment, was certainly sordid 
 enough, and I hoped for better things from the 
 Pension Beaurepas. This institution was one of 
 the most esteemed in Geneva, and, standing in a 
 little garden of its own, not far from the lake, had 
 a very homely, comfortable, sociable aspect. The 
 regular entrance was, as one might say, at the back, 
 which looked upon the street, or rather upon a 
 little place, adorned like every place in Geneva, 
 great or small, with a fountain. This fact was not 
 prepossessing, for on crossing the threshold you 
 found yourself more or less in the kitchen, encom- 
 passed with culinary odours. This, however, was no 
 great matter, for at the Pension Beaurepas there 
 was no attempt at gentility or at concealment of 
 the domestic machinery. The latter was of a very 
 simple sort. Madame Beaurepas was an excellent 
 little old woman she was very far advanced in 
 life, and had been keeping a pension for forty years 
 whose only faults were that she was slightly 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 93 
 
 deaf, that she was fond of a surreptitious pinch of 
 snuff, and that, at the age of seventy -three, she 
 wore flowers in her cap. There was a tradition in 
 the house that she was not so deaf as she pre- 
 tended ; that she feigned this infirmity in order to 
 possess herself of the secrets of her lodgers. But I 
 never subscribed to this theory ; I am convinced 
 that Madame Beaurepas had outlived the period of 
 indiscreet curiosity. She was a philosopher, on a 
 matter-of-fact basis; she had been having lodgers 
 for forty years, and all that she asked of them was 
 that they should pay their bills, make use of the 
 door-mat, and fold their napkins. She cared very 
 little for their secrets. " J'en ai vus de toutes les 
 couleurs," she said to me. She had quite ceased to 
 care for individuals ; she cared only for types, for 
 categories. Her large observation had made her 
 acquainted with a great number, and her mind was 
 a complete collection of "heads." She flattered 
 herself that she knew at a glance where to pigeon- 
 hole a new-comer, and if she made any mistakes 
 her deportment never betrayed them. I think that, 
 as regards individuals, she had neither likes nor 
 dislikes ; but she was capable of expressing esteem 
 
94 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 or contempt for a species. She had her own ways, 
 I suppose, of manifesting her approval, but her 
 manner of indicating the reverse was simple and 
 unvarying. "Je trouve que c'est de'place' !" this 
 exhausted her view of the matter. If one of her 
 inmates had put arsenic into the pot-au-feu, I be- 
 lieve Madame Beaurepas would have contented 
 herself with remarking that the proceeding was 
 out of place. The line of misconduct to which 
 she most objected was an undue assumption of 
 gentility; she had no patience with boarders who 
 gave themselves airs. "When people come chez 
 moi, it is not to cut a figure in the world ; I have 
 never had that illusion," I remember hearing her 
 say; "and when you pay seven francs a day, tout 
 compris, it comprises everything but the right to 
 look down upon the others. But there are people 
 who, the less they pay, the more they take them- 
 selves au strieux. My most difficult boarders have 
 always been those who have had the little rooms." 
 
 Madame Beaurepas had a niece, a young woman 
 of some forty odd years ; and the two ladies, with the 
 assistance of a couple of thick -waisted, red -armed 
 peasant women, kept the house going. If on your 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 95 
 
 exits and entrances you peeped into the kitchen, it 
 made very little difference; for Celestine, the cook, 
 had no pretension to be an invisible functionary or 
 to deal in occult methods. She was always at your 
 service, with a grateful grin : she blacked your boots ; 
 she trudged off to fetch a cab ; she would have 
 carried your baggage, if you had allowed her, on 
 her broad little back. She was always tramping in 
 and out, between her kitchen and the fountain in the 
 place, where it often seemed to me that a large part 
 of the preparation for our dinner went forward the 
 wringing out of towels and table-cloths, the washing 
 of potatoes and cabbages, the scouring of saucepans 
 and cleansing of water-bottles. You enjoyed, from 
 the door-step, a perpetual back view of Celestine and 
 of her large, loose, woollen ankles, as she craned, from 
 the waist, over into the fountain -and dabbled in her 
 various utensils. This sounds as if life went on in 
 a very make-shift fashion at the Pension Beaurepas 
 as if the tone of the < establishment were sordid. 
 But such was not at all the case. We were simply 
 very bourgeois ; we practised the good old Genevese 
 principle of not sacrificing to appearances. This is 
 an excellent principle when you have the reality. 
 
96 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 We had the reality at the Pension Beaurepas : we 
 had it in the shape of soft, short beds, equipped with 
 fluffy duvets ; of admirable coffee, served to us in the 
 morning by Celestine in person, as we lay recum- 
 bent on these downy couches ; of copious, wholesome, 
 succulent dinners, conformable to the best provincial 
 traditions. Tor myself, I thought the Pension 
 Beaurepas picturesque, and this, with me, at that 
 time was a great word. I was young and ingenuous ; 
 I had just come from America. I wished to perfect 
 myself in the French tongue, and I innocently be- 
 lieved that it flourished by Lake Leman. I used 
 to go to lectures at the Academy, and come home 
 with a violent appetite. I always enjoyed my 
 morning walk across the long bridge (there was only 
 one, just there, in those days) which spans the deep 
 blue out-gush of the lake, and up the dark, steep 
 streets of the old Calvinistic city. The garden faced 
 this way, toward the lake and the old town; and 
 this was the pleasantest approach to the house. 
 There was a high wall, with a double gate in the 
 middle, flanked by a couple of ancient massive posts ; 
 the big rusty grille contained some old-fashioned 
 iron -work. The garden was rather mouldy and 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 97 
 
 weedy, tangled and untended; but it contained a 
 little thin-flowing fountain, several green benches, a 
 rickety little table of the same complexion, and three 
 orange-trees, in tubs, which were deposited as effect- 
 ively as possible in front of the windows of the 
 salon. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
II. 
 
 As commonly happens in boarding-houses, the rustle 
 of petticoats was, at the Pension Beaurepas, the most 
 familiar form of the human tread. There was the 
 usual allotment of economical widows and old maids, 
 and to maintain the balance of the sexes there were 
 only an old Frenchman and a young American. It 
 hardly made the matter easier that the old French- 
 man came from Lausanne. He was a native of that 
 estimable town, but lie had once spent six months 
 in Paris, he had tasted of the tree of knowledge ; he 
 had got beyond Lausanne, whose resources he pro- 
 nounced inadequate. Lausanne, as he said " manquait 
 d'agrdments" When obliged, for reasons which he 
 never specified, to bring his residence in Paris to a 
 close, he had fallen back on Geneva ; he had broken 
 his fall at the Pension Beaurepas. Geneva was, 
 after all, more like Paris, and at a Genevese boarding- 
 house there was sure to be plenty of Americans with 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 99 
 
 whom one could talk about the French metropolis. 
 M. Pigeonneau was a little lean man, with a large, 
 narrow nose, who sat a great deal in the garden, 
 reading with the aid of a large magnifying glass a 
 volume from the cabinet de lecture. 
 
 One day, a fortnight after my arrival at the 
 Pension Beaurepas, I came back rather earlier than 
 usual from my academic session ; it wanted half an 
 hour of the midday breakfast. I went into the salon 
 with the design of possessing myself of the day's 
 G-alignani before one of the little English old maids 
 should have removed it to her virginal bower a 
 privilege to which Madame Beaurepas frequently 
 alluded as one of the attractions of the establish- 
 ment. In the salon I found a new-comer, a tall 
 gentleman in a high black hat, whom I immediately 
 recognised as a compatriot. I had often seen him, 
 or his equivalent, in the hotel-parlours of my native 
 land. He apparently supposed himself to be at the 
 present moment in a hotel-parlour ; his hat was on 
 his head, or, rather, half off it pushed back from 
 his forehead, and rather suspended than poised. He 
 stood before a table on which old newspapers were 
 scattered, one of which he had taken up and, with 
 
100 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 his eye -glass on his nose, was holding out at 
 arm's-length. It was that honourable but extremely 
 diminutive sheet, the Journal de Geneve, a news- 
 paper of about the size of a pocket-handkerchief. 
 As I drew near, looking for my Galignani, the tall 
 gentleman gave me, over the top of his eye-glass, a 
 somewhat solemn stare. Presently however, before 
 I had time to lay my hand on the object of my 
 search, he silently offered me the Journal de Geneve. 
 
 "It appears," he said, "to be the paper of the 
 country." 
 
 " Yes," I answered, " I believe it's the best," 
 
 He gazed at it again, still holding it at arm's- 
 length, as if it had been a looking-glass. " Well," 
 he said, "I suppose it's natural a small country 
 should have small papers. You could wrap it up, 
 mountains and all, in one of our dailies ! " 
 
 I found my Galignani and went off with it into 
 the garden, where I seated myself on a bench in the 
 shade. Presently I saw the tall gentleman in the 
 hat appear in one of the open windows of the salon, 
 and stand there with his hands in his pockets and 
 his legs a little apart. He looked very much bored, 
 and I don't know why I immediately began to 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 101 
 
 feel sorry for him. He was not at all a picturesque 
 personage; he looked like a jaded, faded man of 
 business. But after a little he came into the garden 
 and began to stroll about; and then his restless, 
 unoccupied carriage, and the vague, unacquainted 
 manner in which his eyes wandered over the place 
 seemed to make it proper that, as an older resident, 
 I should exercise a certain hospitality. I said 
 something to him, and he came and sat down beside 
 me on my bench, clasping one of his long knees in 
 his hands. 
 
 "When is it this big breakfast of theirs comes 
 off?" he inquired. "That's what I call it the 
 little breakfast and the big breakfast. I never 
 thought I should live to see the time when I should 
 care to eat two breakfasts. But a man's glad to do 
 anything, over here." 
 
 "For myself," I observed, "I find plenty to do." 
 
 He turned his head and glanced at me with a dry, 
 deliberate, kind-looking eye. " You're getting used 
 to the life, are you ?" 
 
 " I like the life very much," I answered, laughing. 
 
 " How long have you tried it ? " 
 
 "Do you mean in this place ?" 
 
102 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 " Well, I mean anywhere. It seems to me pretty 
 much the same all over." 
 
 "I have been in this house only a fortnight," I 
 said. 
 
 "Well, what should you say, from what you 
 have seen?" my companion asked. 
 
 " Oh," said I, " you can, see all there is immediately. 
 It's very simple." 
 
 " Sweet simplicity, eh ? I'm afraid my two ladies 
 will find it too simple." 
 
 rt Everything is very good," I went on. " And 
 Madame Beaurepas is a charming old woman. And 
 then it's veiy cheap." 
 
 " Cheap, is it ?" my friend repeated meditatively. 
 
 "Doesn't it strike you so?" I asked. I thought 
 it very possible he had not inquired the terms. But 
 he appeared not to have heard me ; he sat there, 
 clasping his knee and blinking, in a contemplative 
 manner, at the sunshine. 
 
 "Are you from the United States, sir?" he 
 presently demanded, turning his head again. 
 
 " Yes, sir," I replied ; and I mentioned the place 
 of my nativity. 
 
 " I presumed," he said, " that you were American 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 10S 
 
 or English. I'm from the United States myself ; 
 from New York city. Many of our people here ? " 
 
 " Not so many as, I believe, there have sometimes 
 been. There are two or three ladies." 
 
 "Well," my interlocutor declared, "I am very 
 fond of ladies' society. I think when its superior 
 there's nothing comes up to it. I've got two ladies 
 here myself; I must make you acquainted with 
 them." 
 
 I rejoined that I should be delighted, and I 
 inquired of my friend whether he had been long in 
 Europe. 
 
 " Well, it seems precious long," he said, " but my 
 time's not up yet. We have been here fourteen 
 weeks and a half." 
 
 " Are you travelling for pleasure ?" I asked. 
 
 My companion turned his head again and looked 
 at me looked at me so long in silence that I at 
 last also turned and met his eyes. 
 
 "No, sir," he said presently. "No, sir," he re- 
 peated, after a considerable interval. 
 
 "Excuse me," said I, for there was something 
 so solemn in his tone that I feared I had been 
 indiscreet. 
 
104 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 He took no notice of my ejaculation ; lie simply 
 continued to look at me. " I'm travelling," lie said, 
 at last, "to please the doctors. They seemed to 
 think they would like it." 
 
 "Ah, they sent you abroad for your health?" 
 
 " They sent me abroad because they were so con- 
 foundedly muddled they didn't know what else to do." 
 
 "That's often the best thing," I ventured to 
 remark. 
 
 " It was a confession of weakness ; they wanted 
 me to stop plaguing them. They didn't know 
 enough to cure me, and that's the way they thought 
 they would get round it. I wanted to be cured I 
 didn't want to be transported. I hadn't done any 
 harm." 
 
 I assented to the general proposition of the in- 
 efficiency of doctors, and asked my companion if 
 he had been seriously ill. 
 
 " I didn't sleep," he said, after some delay. 
 
 " Ah, that's very annoying. I suppose you were 
 overworked." 
 
 " I didn't eat ; I took no interest in my food." 
 
 "Well, I hope you both eat and sleep now," I 
 said. 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 105 
 
 " I couldn't hold a pen," my neighbour went on. 
 " I couldn't sit still. I couldn't walk from my; house 
 to the cars and it's only a little way. I lost my 
 interest in business." 
 
 " You needed a holiday," I observed. 
 
 " That's what the doctors said. It wasn't so very 
 smart of them. I had been paying strict attention 
 to business for twenty-three years." 
 
 " In all that time you have never had a holiday ?" 
 I exclaimed, with horror. 
 
 My companion waited a little. " Sundays," he 
 said at last. 
 
 " No wonder, then, you were out of sorts." 
 
 " Well, sir," said my friend, " I shouldn't have 
 been where I was three years ago if I had spent my 
 time travelling round Europe. I was in a very 
 advantageous position. I did a very large business. 
 I was considerably interested in lumber." He paused, 
 turned his head, and looked at me a moment. 
 " Have you any business interests yourself ? " I 
 answered that I had none, and he went on again, 
 slowly, softly, deliberately. " Well, sir, perhaps you 
 are not aware that business in the United States 
 is not what it was a short time since. Business 
 
106 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 interests are very insecure. There seems to be a 
 general falling-off. Different parties offer different 
 explanations of the fact, but so far as I am aware 
 none of their observations have set things going 
 again." I ingeniously intimated that if business 
 was dull, the time was good for coming away; 
 whereupon my neighbour threw back his head and 
 stretched his legs a while. " Well, sir, that's one 
 view of the matter certainly. There's something 
 to be said for that. These things should be looked 
 at all round. That's the ground my wife took. 
 That's the ground," he added in a moment " that a 
 lady would naturally take ;" and he gave a little dry 
 laugh. 
 
 " You think it's slightly illogical," I remarked. 
 
 " Well, sir, the ground I took was that the worse a 
 man's business is, the more it requires looking after. 
 I shouldn't want to go out to take a walk not even 
 to go to church if my house was on fire. My firm 
 is not doing the business it was ; it's like a sick 
 child, it requires nursing. What I wanted the 
 doctors to do was to fix me up, so that I could go 
 on at home. I'd have taken anything they'd have 
 given me, and as many times a day. I wanted to 
 
THE TENSION BEAUREPAS. 107 
 
 be right there ; I had my reasons ; I have them 
 still. But I came off, all the same," said my friend, 
 with a melancholy smile. 
 
 I was a great deal younger than he, but there 
 was something so simple and communicative in his 
 tone, so expressive of a desire to fraternise, and so 
 exempt from any theory of human differences, that 
 I quite forgot his seniority, and found myself offering 
 him paternal advice. " Don't think about all that," 
 said I. " Simply enjoy yourself, amuse yourself, get 
 well. Travel about and see Europe. At the end of 
 a year, by the time you are ready to go home, things 
 will have improved over there, and you will be quite 
 well and happy." 
 
 My friend laid his hand on my knee ; he looked 
 \ 
 
 at me for some moments, and I thought he was 
 going to say, " You are very young ! " But he 
 said presently, " You have got used to Europe any 
 way!" 
 
III. 
 
 AT breakfast I encountered his ladies Ms wife and 
 daughter. They were placed, however, at a distance 
 from me, and it was not until the pensionnaires had 
 dispersed, and some of them, according to custom, 
 had come out into the garden, that he had an oppor- 
 tunity of making me acquainted with them. 
 
 "Will you allow me to introduce you to my 
 daughter?" he said, moved apparently by a paternal 
 inclination to provide this young lady with social 
 diversion. She was standing with her mother, in 
 one of the paths, looking about with no great com- 
 placency, as I imagined, at the homely characteristics 
 of the place, and old M. Pigeonneau was hovering 
 near, hesitating apparently between the desire to be 
 urbane and the absence of a pretext. " Mrs. Euck 
 Miss Sophy Euck," said my friend, leading me up. 
 
 Mrs. Euck was a large, plump, light coloured 
 person, with a smooth fair face, a somnolent eye, 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 109 
 
 and an elaborate coiffure. Miss Sophy was a girl of 
 one and twenty, very small and very pretty what 
 I suppose would have been called a lively brunette. 
 Both of these ladies were attired in black silk dresses, 
 very much trimmed ; they had an air of the highest 
 elegance. 
 
 " Do you think highly of this pension ?" inquired 
 Mrs. Euck, after a few preliminaries. 
 
 " It's a little rough, but it seems to me comfort- 
 able," I answered. 
 
 "Does it take a high rank in Geneva?" Mrs. 
 Euck pursued. 
 
 " I imagine it enjoys a very fair fame," I said, 
 smiling. 
 
 " I should never dream of comparing it to a New 
 York boarding-house," said Mrs. Euck. 
 
 "It's quite a different style," her daughter ob- 
 served. Miss Euck had folded her arms; she was 
 holding her elbows with a pair of white little hands, 
 and she was tapping the ground with a pretty little 
 foot.' 
 
 "We hardly expected to come to a pension," 
 said Mrs. Euck. " But we thought we would try ; 
 we had heard so much about Swiss pensions. I 
 
110 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 was saying to Mr. Buck that I wondered whether 
 this was a favourable specimen. I was afraid we 
 might have made a mistake." 
 
 " We knew some people who had been here ; 
 they thought everything of Madame Beaurepas," said 
 Miss Sophy. " They said she was a real friend." 
 
 " Mr. and Mrs. Parker perhaps you have heard 
 her speak of them," Mrs. Kuck pursued. 
 
 " Madame Beaurepas has had a great many Ameri- 
 cans ; she is very fond of Americans," I replied. 
 
 " Well, I must say I should think she would be, 
 if she compares them with some others." 
 
 "Mother is always comparing," observed Miss 
 Euck. 
 
 " Of course I am always comparing," rejoined 
 the elder lady. " I never had a chance till now ; I 
 never knew my privileges. Give me an American!" 
 And Mrs. Euck indulged in a little laugh. 
 
 " Well, I must say there are some things I like 
 over here," said Miss Sophy, with courage. And 
 indeed I could see that she was a young woman of 
 great decision. 
 
 " You like the shops that's what you like," her 
 father affirmed. 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. Ill 
 
 The young lady addressed herself to me, without 
 heeding this remark. " I suppose you feel quite at 
 home here." 
 
 " Oh, he likes it ; he has got used to the life !" 
 exclaimed Mr. Euck. 
 
 " I wish you'd teach Mr. Euck," said his wife. 
 " It seems as if he couldn't get used to anything." 
 
 " I'm used to you, my dear," the husband retorted, 
 giving me a humorous look. 
 
 " He's intensely restless," continued Mrs. Euck. 
 " That's what made me want to come to a pension. 
 I thought he would settle down more." 
 
 " I don't think I am used to you, after all," said 
 her husband. 
 
 In view of a possible exchange of conjugal 
 repartee I took refuge in conversation with Miss 
 Euck, who seemed perfectly able to play her part in 
 any colloquy. I learned from this young lady that, 
 with her parents, after visiting the British islands, 
 she had been spending a month in Paris, and that 
 she thought she should have died when she left 
 that city. " I hung out of the carriage, when we 
 left the hotel," said Miss Euck, " I assure you I did. 
 And mother did, too." 
 
112 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 " Out of the other window, I hope," said I. 
 
 "Yes, one out of each window," she replied, 
 promptly. " Father had hard work, I can tell you. 
 We hadn't half finished ; there were ever so many 
 places we wanted to go to." 
 
 " Your father insisted on coming away ? " 
 
 " Yes ; after we had been there about a month 
 he said he had enough. He's fearfully restless ; he's 
 very much out of health. Mother and I said to him 
 that if he was restless in Paris he needn't hope for 
 peace anywhere. We don't mean to leave him 
 alone till he takes us back." There was an air of 
 keen resolution in Miss Euck's pretty face, of lucid 
 apprehension of desirable ends, which made me, as 
 she pronounced these words, direct a glance of 
 covert compassion toward her poor recalcitrant 
 father. He had walked away a little with his 
 wife, and I saw only his back and his stooping, 
 patient-looking shoulders, whose air of acute resig- 
 nation was thrown into relief by the voluminous 
 tranquillity of Mrs. Euck. " He will have to take 
 us back in September, any way," the young girl 
 pursued ; " he will have to take us back to get some 
 things we have ordered." 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 113 
 
 "Have you ordered a great, many things?" I 
 asked, jocosely. 
 
 "Well, I guess we have ordered some. Of 
 course we wanted to take advantage of being in 
 Paris ladies always do. "We have left the prin- 
 cipal things till we go back. Of course that is the 
 principal interest, for ladies. Mother said she 
 should feel so shabby, if she just passed through. 
 We have promised all the people to be back in 
 September, and I never broke a promise yet. So 
 Mr. Euck has got to make his plans accordingly." 
 
 " And what are his plans ?" 
 
 " I don't know ; he doesn't seem able to make 
 any. His great idea was to get to Geneva; but 
 now that he has got here he doesn't seem to care. 
 It's the effect of ill health. He used to be so bright; 
 but now he is quite subdued. It's about time he 
 should improve, any way. We went out last night 
 to look at the jewellers' windows in that street 
 behind the hotel. I had always heard of those 
 jewellers' windows. We saw some lovely things, 
 but it didn't seem to rouse father. He'll get tired 
 of Geneva sooner than he did of Paris." 
 
 "Ah," said I, "there are finer things here than 
 
 VOL. II. I 
 
114 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 the jewellers' windows. We are very near some of 
 the most beautiful scenery in Europe." 
 
 " I suppose you mean the mountains. Well, we 
 have seen plenty of mountains at home. We used to 
 go to the mountains every summer. We are familiar 
 enough with the mountains. Aren't we, mother ? " 
 the young lady demanded, appealing to Mrs. Euck, 
 who, with her husband, had drawn near again. 
 
 "Aren't we what ?" inquired the elder lady. 
 
 " Aren't we familiar with the mountains ? " 
 
 " WeU, I hope so," said Mrs. Euck. 
 
 Mr. Euck, with his hands in his pockets, gave 
 me a sociable wink. " There's nothing much you 
 can tell them !" he said. 
 
 The two ladies stood face to face a few moments, 
 surveying each other's garments. " Don't you want 
 to go out?" the young girl at last inquired of her 
 mother. 
 
 " Well, I think we had better ; we have got to 
 go up to that place." 
 
 " To what place ?" asked Mr. Euck. 
 
 " To that jeweller's to that big one." 
 
 " They all seemed big enough ; they were too 
 big ! " And Mr. Euck gave me another wink. 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 115 
 
 " That one where we saw the blue cross," said 
 his daughter. 
 
 " Oh, come, what do you want of t that blue 
 cross ? " poor Mr. Ruck demanded. 
 
 " She wants to hang it on a black velvet ribbon 
 and tie it round her neck," said his wife. 
 
 " A black velvet ribbon ? No, I thank you!" cried 
 the young lady. " Do you suppose I would wear that 
 cross on a black velvet ribbon ? On a nice little gold 
 chain, if you please a little narrow gold chain, like 
 an old-fashioned watch-chain; That's the proper 
 thing for that blue cross. I know the sort of chain 
 I mean ; I'm going to look for one. When I want 
 a thing," said Miss Euck, with decision, "I can 
 generally find it." 
 
 " Look here, Sophy," her father urged, " you don't 
 want that blue cross." 
 
 "I do want it I happen to want it." And 
 Sophy glanced at me with a little laugh. 
 
 Her laugh, which in itself was pretty, suggested 
 that there were various relations in which one might 
 stand to Miss Euck ; but I think I was conscious of 
 a certain satisfaction in not occupying the paternal 
 one. " Don't worry the poor child," said her mother. 
 
116 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 " Come on, mother," said Miss Kuck. 
 
 " We are going to look about a little," explained 
 the elder lady to me, by way of taking leave. 
 
 " I know what that means," remarked Mr. Buck, 
 as his companions moved away. He stood looking 
 at them a moment, while he raised his hand to his 
 head, behind, and stood rubbing it a little, with a 
 movement that displaced his hat. (I may remark 
 in parenthesis that I never saw a hat more easily 
 displaced than Mr. Euck's.) I supposed he was 
 going to say something querulous, but I was 
 mistaken. Mr. Euck was unhappy, but he was 
 very good-natured. " Well, they want to pick up 
 something," he said. " That's the principal interest, 
 for ladies." 
 
IV. 
 
 MR. EUCK distinguished me, as the French say. 
 He honoured me with his esteem, and; as the days 
 elapsed, with a large portion of his confidence. 
 Sometimes he bored me a little, for the tone of his 
 conversation was not cheerful, tending as it did 
 almost exclusively to a melancholy dirge over the 
 financial prostration of our common country. " No, 
 sir, business in the United States is not what it 
 once was," he found occasion to remark several 
 times a day. " There's not the same spring there's 
 not the same hopeful feeling. You can see it in 
 all departments." He used to sit by the hour in 
 the little garden of the pension, with a roll of 
 American newspapers in his lap and his high hat 
 pushed back, swinging one of his long legs and 
 reading the New York Herald. He paid a daily 
 visit to the American banker's, on the other side of 
 the Ehone, and remained there a long time, turning 
 
118 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 over the old papers on the green velvet table in the 
 middle of the Salon des Strangers and fraternising 
 with chance compatriots. But in spite of these 
 diversions his time hung heavily upon his hands. 
 I used sometimes to propose to him to take a walk ; 
 but he had a mortal horror of pedestrianism, and 
 regarded my own taste for it as a morbid form of 
 activity. "You'll kill yourself, if you don't look 
 out," he said, "walking all over the country. I 
 don't want to walk round that way; I ain't a 
 postman ! " Briefly speaking, Mr. Euck had few 
 resources. His wife and daughter, on the other 
 hand, it was to be supposed, were possessed of a 
 good many that could not be apparent to an un- 
 obtrusive young man. They also sat a great deal 
 in the garden or in the salon, side by side, with 
 folded hands, contemplating material objects, and 
 were remarkably independent of most of the usual 
 feminine aids to idleness light literature, tapestry, 
 the use of the piano. They were, however, much 
 fonder of locomotion than their companion, and I 
 often met them in the Eue du Ehone and on the 
 quays, loitering in front of the jewellers' windows. 
 They might have had a cavalier in the person of 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 119 
 
 old M. Pigeonneau, who possessed a high apprecia- 
 tion of their charms, but who, owing to the absence 
 of a common idiom, was deprived of the pleasures of 
 intimacy. He knew no English, and Mrs. Buck 
 and her daughter had, as it seemed, an incurable 
 mistrust of the beautiful tongue which, as the old 
 man endeavoured to impress upon them, was pre- 
 eminently the language of conversation. 
 
 " They have a tournure de princesse a dis- 
 tinction supreme" he said to me. " One is sur- 
 prised to find them in a little pension, at seven 
 francs a day." 
 
 " Oh, they don't come for economy," I answered. 
 " They must be rich." 
 
 " They don't come for my beaux yeux for mine," 
 said M. Pigeonneau, sadly. " Perhaps it's for yours, 
 young man. Je vous recommande la mere." 
 
 I reflected a moment. " They came on account 
 of Mr. Buck because at hotels he's so restless." 
 
 M. Pigeonneau gave me a knowing nod. " Of 
 course he is, with such a wife as that ! a femme 
 superbe. Madame Ruck is preserved in perfection 
 a miraculous fraicheur. I like those large, fair, 
 quiet women; they are often, dans. I'intimite', the 
 
120 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 most agreeable. I'll warrant you that at heart 
 Madame Buck is a finished coquette." 
 " I rather doubt it," I said. 
 " You suppose her cold ? !N"e vous y fiez pas !" 
 " It is a matter in which I have nothing at stake." 
 "You young Americans are droll," said M. 
 Pigeonneau ; " you never have anything at stake ! 
 But the little one, for example; I'll warrant you 
 she's not cold. She is admirably made." 
 " She is very pretty." 
 
 " ' She is very pretty ! ' Vous dites cela d'un 
 ton ! When you pay compliments to Mademoiselle 
 Kuck, I hope that's not the way you do it." 
 
 " I don't pay compliments to Mademoiselle Kuck." 
 "Ah, decidedly," said M. Pigeonneau, "you 
 young Americans are droll ! " 
 
 I should have suspected that these two ladies 
 would not especially commend themselves to 
 Madame Beaurepas; that as a maitresse de salon, 
 which she in some degree aspired to be, she would 
 have found them wanting in a certain flexibility of 
 deportment. But I should have gone quite wrong ; 
 Madame Beaurepas had no fault at all to find with 
 her new pensionnaires. "I have no observation 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 121 
 
 whatever to make about them," she said to me one 
 evening. " I see nothing in those ladies which is 
 at all cUplact. They don't complain of anything; 
 they don't meddle ; they take what's given them ; 
 they leave me tranquil. The Americans are often 
 like that. Often, but not always," Madame Beau- 
 repas pursued. "We are to have a specimen to- 
 morrow of a very different sort." 
 
 "An American ?" I inquired. 
 
 "Two Amtricaines a mother and a daughter. 
 There are Americans and Americans : when you are 
 difficiles, you are more so than any one, and when 
 you have pretensions ah, par exemple, it's serious. 
 I foresee that with this little lady everything will 
 be serious, beginning with her cafe au lait. She 
 has been staying at the Pension Chamousset my 
 concurrent, you know, farther up the street; but 
 she is coming away because the coffee is bad. She 
 holds to her coffee, it appears. I don't know what 
 liquid Madame Chamousset may have invented, but 
 we will do the best we can for her. Only, I know 
 she will make me des histoires about something else. 
 She will demand a new lamp for the salon ; voiw 
 allez wir cela. She wishes to pay but eleven francs 
 
122 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 a day for herself and her daughter, tout compris ; 
 and for their eleven francs they expect to be lodged 
 like princesses. But she is very ' ladylike ' isn't 
 that what you call it in English ? Oh, pour cela, 
 she is ladylike ! " 
 
 I caught a glimpse on the morrow of this lady- 
 like person, who was arriving at her new residence 
 as I came in from a walk. She had come in a 
 cab, with her daughter and her luggage ; and, with 
 an air of perfect softness and serenity, she was dis- 
 puting the fare as she stood among her boxes, on the 
 steps. She addressed her cabman in a very English 
 accent, but with extreme precision and correctness. 
 " I wish to be perfectly reasonable, but I don't wish to 
 encourage you in exorbitant demands. With a franc 
 and a half you are sufficiently paid. It is not the 
 custom at Geneva to give a pour-boire for so short a 
 drive. I have made inquiries, and I find it is not the 
 custom, even in the best families. I am a stranger, 
 yes, but I always adopt the custom of the native 
 families. I think it my duty toward the natives." 
 
 " But I am a native, too, moi ! " said the cabman, 
 with an angry laugh. 
 
 "You seem to me to speak with a German 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 123 
 
 accent," continued the lady. " You are probably 
 from Basel. A franc and a half is sufficient. I 
 see you have left behind the little red bag which I 
 asked you to hold between your knees; you will 
 please to go back to the other house and get it. 
 Very well, if you are impolite I will make a com- 
 plaint of you to-morrow at the administration. 
 Aurora, you will find a pencil in the outer pocket 
 of my embroidered satchel; please to write down 
 his number, 8 7 ; do you see it distinctly ? in 
 case we should forget it." 
 
 The young lady addressed as " Aurora " a slight, 
 fair girl, holding a large parcel of umbrellas stood 
 at hand while this allocution went forward, but she 
 apparently gave no heed to it. She stood looking 
 about her, in a listless manner, at the front of the 
 house, at the corridor, at Celestine tucking up her 
 apron in the door-way, at me as I passed in amid 
 the disseminated luggage ; her mother's parsimonious 
 attitude seeming to produce in Miss Aurora neither 
 sympathy nor embarrassment. At dinner the two 
 ladies were placed on the same side of the table as 
 myself, below Mrs. Euck and her daughter, my own 
 position being on the right of Mr. Buck. I had 
 
124 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 therefore little observation of Mrs. Church such 
 I learned to be her name but I occasionally heard 
 her soft, distinct voice. 
 
 " White wine, if you please; we prefer white wine. 
 There is none on the table ? Then you will please 
 to get some, and to remember to place a bottle of it 
 always here, between my daughter and myself." 
 
 "That lady seems to know what she wants," 
 said Mr. Kuck, " and she speaks so I can understand 
 her. I can't understand every one, over here. I 
 should like to make that lady's acquaintance. Per- 
 haps she knows what / want, too ; it seems hard to 
 find out. But. I don't want any of their sour white 
 wine ; that's one of the things I don't want. I ex- 
 pect she'll be an addition to the pension." 
 
 Mr. Kuck made the acquaintance of Mrs. Church 
 that evening in the parlour, being presented to her 
 by his wife, who presumed on the rights conferred 
 upon herself by the mutual proximity, at table, of 
 the two ladies. I suspected that in Mrs. Church's 
 view Mrs. Euck presumed too far. The fugitive 
 from the Pension Chamousset, as M. Pigeonneau 
 called her, was a little fresh, plump, comely woman, 
 looking less than her age, with a round, bright, 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 125 
 
 serious face. She was very simply and frugally 
 dressed, not at all in the manner of Mr. Buck's 
 companions, and she had an air of quiet distinction 
 which was an excellent defensive weapon. She 
 exhibited a polite disposition to listen to what Mr. 
 Buck might have to say, but her manner was 
 equivalent to an intimation that what she valued 
 least in boarding-house life was its social opportun- 
 ities. She had placed herself near a lamp, after 
 carefully screwing it and turning it up, and she had 
 opened in her lap, with the assistance of a large 
 embroidered marker, an octavo volume, which I per- 
 ceived to be in German. To Mrs. Buck and her 
 daughter she was evidently a puzzle, with her 
 economical attire and her expensive culture. The 
 two younger ladies, however, had begun to fraternise 
 very freely, and Miss Buck presently went wander- 
 ing out of the room with her arm round the waist 
 of Miss Church. It was a very warm evening ; the 
 long windows of the salon stood wide open into the 
 garden, and, inspired by the balmy darkness, M. 
 Pigeonneau and Mademoiselle Beaurepas, a most 
 obliging little woman, who lisped and always wore 
 a huge cravat, declared they would organise a ftte de 
 
126 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 nuit. They engaged in this undertaking, and the 
 fete developed itself, consisting of half a dozen red 
 paper lanterns, hung about on the trees, and of 
 several glasses of sir op, carried on a tray by the 
 stout-armed Celestine. As the festival deepened to 
 its climax I went out into the garden, where M. 
 Pigeonneau was master of ceremonies. 
 . " But where are those charming young ladies," 
 he cried, "Miss Euck and the new-comer, Vaimable 
 transfuge ? Their absence has been remarked, and 
 they are wanting to the brilliancy of the occasion. 
 Voyez I have selected a glass of syrup a " generous 
 glass for Mademoiselle Euck, and I advise you, my 
 young friend, if you wish to make a good impression, 
 to put aside one which you may offer to the other 
 young lady. What is her name ? Miss Church. 
 I see; it's a singular name. There is a church in 
 which I would willingly worship !" 
 
 Mr. Euck presently came out of the salon, having 
 concluded his interview with Mrs. Church. Through 
 the open window I saw the latter lady sitting under 
 the lamp with her German octavo, while Mrs. Euck, 
 established, empty-handed, in an arm-chair near her, 
 gazed at her with an air of fascination. 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 127 
 
 " Well, I told you she would know what I want/' 
 said Mr. Euck. " She says I want to go up to 
 Appenzell, wherever that is ; that I want to drink 
 whey and live in a high latitude what did she call 
 it ? a high altitude. She seemed to think we 
 ought to leave for Appenzell to-morrow ; she'd got 
 it all fixed. She says this ain't a high enough lat 
 a high enough altitude. And she says I mustn't 
 go too high, either ; that would be just as bad ; she 
 seems to know just the right figure. She says she'll 
 give me a list of the hotels where we must stop, on 
 the way to Appenzell. I asked her if she didn't 
 want to go with us, but she says she'd rather sit still 
 and read. I expect she's a big reader." 
 
 The daughter of this accomplished woman now 
 reappeared, in company with Miss Euck, with whom 
 she had been strolling through the outlying parts of 
 the garden. 
 
 "Well," said Miss Euck, glancing at the red 
 paper lanterns, " are they trying to stick the flower- 
 pots into the trees ?" 
 
 " It's an illumination in honour of our arrival," 
 the other young girl rejoined. " It's a triumph over 
 Madame Chamousset." 
 
128 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 " Meanwhile, at the Pension Chamousset," I vent- 
 ured to suggest, " they have put out their lights ; 
 they are sitting in darkness, lamenting your depart- 
 ure." 
 
 She looked at me, smiling ; she was standing in 
 the light that came from the house. M. Pigeonneau, 
 meanwhile, who had been awaiting his chance, ad- 
 vanced to Miss Euck with his glass of syrup. " I 
 have kept it for you, mademoiselle," he said ; " I 
 have jealously guarded it. It is very delicious !" 
 
 Miss Kuck looked at him and his syrup, without 
 making any motion to take the glass. "Well, I 
 guess it's sour," she said in a moment ; and she gave 
 a little shake of her head. 
 
 M. Pigeonneau stood staring, with his syrup in 
 his hand ; then he slowly turned away. He looked 
 about at the rest of us, as if to appeal from Miss 
 Buck's insensibility, and went to deposit his rejected 
 tribute on a bench. 
 
 " Won't you give it to me ?" asked Miss Church, 
 in faultless French. " J'adore le sirop, moi." 
 
 M. Pigeonneau came back with alacrity, and pre- 
 sented the glass with a very low bow. " I adore 
 good manners," murmured the old man. 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 129 
 
 This incident caused me to look at Miss Church 
 with quickened interest. She was not strikingly 
 pretty, but in her charming, irregular face there was 
 something brilliant and ardent. Like her mother, 
 she was very simply dressed. 
 
 " She wants to go to America, and her mother 
 won't let her," said Miss Sophy to me, explaining her 
 companion's situation. 
 
 " I am very sorry for America," I answered, 
 laughing. 
 
 " Well, I don't want to say anything against your 
 mother, but I think it's shameful," Miss Kuck 
 pursued. 
 
 "Mamma has very good reasons; she will tell 
 you them all." 
 
 " Well, I'm sure I don't want to hear them," said 
 Miss Ruck. " You have got a right to go to your 
 own country; every one has a right to go to their 
 own country." 
 
 "Mamma is not very patriotic," said Aurora 
 Church, smiling. 
 
 " Well, I call that dreadful," her companion de- 
 clared. " I have heard that there are some Ameri- 
 cans like that, but I never believed it." 
 
 VOL. n. K 
 
130 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 "There are all sorts of Americans," I said, 
 laughing. 
 
 "Aurora's one of the right sort," rejoined Miss 
 Euck, who had apparently become very intimate 
 with her new friend. 
 
 " Are you very patriotic ?" I asked of the young 
 girl. 
 
 " She's right down homesick," said Miss Sophy ; 
 " she's dying to go. If I were you my mother 
 would have to take me." 
 
 " Mamma is going to take me to Dresden." 
 
 " Well, I declare I never heard of anything so 
 dreadful ! " cried Miss Euck. " It's like something 
 in a story." 
 
 " I never heard there was anything very dreadful 
 in Dresden," I interposed. 
 
 Miss Euck looked at me a moment. "Well, I 
 don't believe you are a good American," she replied, 
 " and I never supposed you were. You had better 
 go in there and talk to Mrs. Church." 
 
 " Dresden is really very nice, isn't it ?" I asked 
 of her companion. 
 
 "It isn't nice if you happen to prefer New 
 York," said Miss Sophy. "Miss Church prefers 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 131 
 
 New York. Tell him you are dying to see New 
 York ; it will make him angry," she went on. 
 
 "I have no desire to make him angry," said 
 Aurora, smiling. 
 
 " It is only Miss Euck who can do that," I re- 
 joined. " Have you been a long time in Europe ? " 
 
 " Always." 
 
 " I call that wicked ! " Miss Sophy declared, 
 
 " You might be in a worse place," I continued. 
 " I find Europe very interesting." 
 
 Miss Euck gave a little laugh. " I was saying 
 that you wanted to pass for a European." 
 
 " Yes, I want to pass for a Dalmatian." 
 
 Miss Euck looked at me a moment. "Well, 
 you had better not come home," she said. "No 
 one will speak to you." 
 
 "Were you born in these countries ?" I asked of 
 her companion. 
 
 " Oh, no ; I came to Europe when I was a small 
 child. But I remember America a little, and it 
 seems delightful." 
 
 " Wait till you see it again. It's just too lovely," 
 said Miss Sophy. 
 
 " It's the grandest country in the world," I added. 
 
132 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 Miss Buck began to toss her head. " Come 
 away, my dear," she said. " If there's a creature I 
 despise it's a man that tries to say funny things 
 about his own country." 
 
 " Don't you think one can be tired of Europe ?" 
 Aurora asked, lingering. 
 
 " Possibly after many years." 
 
 "Father was tired of it after three weeks," said 
 Miss Euck. 
 
 "I have been here sixteen years," her friend 
 went on, looking at me with a charming intentness, 
 as if she had a purpose in speaking. " It used to 
 be for my education. I don't know what it's for 
 now." 
 
 " She's beautifully educated," said Miss Euck. 
 " She knows four languages." 
 
 " I am not very sure that I know English." 
 
 "You should go to Boston!" cried Miss Sophy. 
 " They speak splendidly in Boston." 
 
 " C'est mon re>e," said Aurora, still looking at 
 me. 
 
 " Have you been all over Europe," I asked " in 
 all the different countries ?" 
 
 She hesitated a moment, "Everywhere that 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 133 
 
 there's a pension. Mamma is devoted to pensions. 
 We have lived, at one time or another, in every 
 pension in Europe." 
 
 "Well, I should think you had seen about 
 enough/' said Miss Euck. 
 
 " It's a delightful way of seeing Europe," Aurora 
 rejoined, with her brilliant smile. "You may 
 imagine how it has attached me to the different 
 countries. I have such charming souvenirs ! There 
 is a pension awaiting us now at Dresden, eight 
 francs a day, without wine. That's rather dear. 
 Mamma means to make them give us wine. Mamma 
 is a great authority on pensions ; she is known, that 
 way, all over Europe. Last winter we were in 
 Italy, and she discovered one at Piacenza, four 
 francs a day. We made economies." 
 
 "Your mother doesn't seem to mingle much," 
 observed Miss Euck, glancing through the window 
 at the scholastic attitude of Mrs. Church. 
 
 "No, she doesn't mingle, except in the native 
 society. Though she lives in pensions, she detests 
 them." 
 
 " Why does she live in them, then ?" asked Miss 
 Sophy, rather resentfully. 
 
134 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 " Oh, because we are so poor ; it's the cheapest 
 way to live. We have tried having a cook, but the 
 cook always steals. Mamma used to set me to 
 watch her ; that's the way I passed myjeunesse my 
 belle jeunesse. We are frightfully poor," the young girl 
 went on, with the same strange frankness a curious 
 mixture of girlish grace and conscious cynicism. 
 "Nous n'avons pas le sou. That's one of the 
 reasons we don't go back to America ; mamma says 
 we can't afford to live there." 
 
 " Well, any one can see that you're an American 
 girl," Miss Buck remarked, in a consolatory manner. 
 " I can tell an American girl a mile off. You've 
 got the American style." 
 
 " I'm afraid I haven't the American toilette" said 
 Aurora, looking at the other's superior splendour. 
 
 " Well, your dress was cut in France ; any one 
 can see that." 
 
 "Yes," said Aurora, with a laugh, "my dress 
 was cut in France at Avranches." 
 
 "Well, you've got a lovely figure, any way," 
 pursued her companion. 
 
 "Ah," said the young girl, "at Avranches, too, 
 my figure was admired." And she looked at me 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 135 
 
 askance, with a certain coquetry. But I was an 
 innocent youth, and I only looked back at her, 
 wondering. She was a great deal nicer than Miss 
 Euck, and yet Miss Kuck would not have said that. 
 " I try to be like an American girl," she continued ; 
 " I do my best, though mamma doesn't at all en- 
 courage it. I am very patriotic. I try to copy 
 them, though mamma has brought me up & la fran- 
 gaise ; that is, as much as one can in pensions. For 
 instance, I have never been out of the house with- 
 out mamma; oh, never, never. But sometimes I 
 despair; American girls are so wonderfully frank. 
 I can't be frank, like that. I am always afraid. 
 But I do what I can, as you see. Excusez du peu S" 
 
 I thought this young lady at least as outspoken 
 as most of her unexpatriated sisters; there was 
 something almost comical in her despondency. But 
 she had by no means caught, as it seemed to me, 
 the American tone. Whatever her tone was, how- 
 ever, it had a fascination ; there was something 
 dainty about it, and yet it was decidedly audacious 
 
 The young ladies began to stroll about the garden 
 again, and I enjoyed their society until M. Pigeon- 
 neau's festival came to an end. 
 
V. 
 
 MR. KUCK did not take his departure for Appenzell 
 on the morrow, in spite of the eagerness to witness 
 such an event which he had attributed to Mrs. 
 Church. He continued, on the contrary, for many 
 days after, to hang about the garden, to wander up 
 to the banker's and back again, to engage in desultory 
 conversation with his fellow -boarders, and to en- 
 deavour to assuage his constitutional restlessness by 
 perusal of the American journals. But on the 
 morrow I had the honour of making Mrs. Church's 
 acquaintance. She came into the salon, after the 
 midday breakfast, with her German octavo under 
 her arm, and she appealed to me for assistance in 
 selecting a quiet corner. 
 
 " Would you very kindly," she said, " move that 
 large fauteuil a little more this way ? Not the 
 largest ; the one with the little cushion. The 
 fauteuils here are very insufficient; I must ask 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 137 
 
 Madame Beaurepas for another. Thank you ; a 
 little more to the left, please ; that will do. Are 
 you particularly engaged ?" she inquired, after she 
 had seated herself. " If not, I should like to have 
 some conversation with you. It is some time since 
 I have met a young American of your what shall 
 I call it ? your affiliations. I have learned your 
 name from Madame Beaurepas ; I think I used to 
 know some of your people. I don't know what has 
 become of all my friends. I used to have a charm- 
 ing little circle at home, but now I meet no one I 
 know. Don't you think there is a great difference 
 between the people one meets and the people one 
 would like to meet? Fortunately, sometimes," added 
 my interlocutress graciously, "it's quite the same. 
 I suppose you are a specimen, a favourable specimen," 
 she went on, " of young America. Tell me, now, 
 what is young America thinking of in these days of 
 ours ? What are its feelings, its opinions, its aspira- 
 tions ? What is its ideal ?" I had seated myself 
 near Mrs. Church, and she had pointed this inter- 
 rogation with the gaze of her bright little eyes. I 
 felt it embarrassing to be treated as a favourable 
 specimen of young America, and to be expected to 
 
138 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 answer for the great republic. Observing my hesita- 
 tion, Mrs. Church clasped her hands on the open 
 page of her book and gave an intense, melancholy 
 smile. " Has it an ideal ?" she softly asked. " Well, 
 we must talk of this," she went on, without insist- 
 ing. "Speak, for the present, for yourself simply. 
 Have you come to Europe with any special design ?" 
 
 " Nothing to boast of," I said. " I am studying 
 a little." 
 
 " Ah, I am glad to hear that. You are gathering 
 up a little European culture ; that's what we lack, 
 you know, at home. No individual can do much, 
 of course. But you must not be discouraged ; every 
 little counts." 
 
 " I see that you, at least, are doing your part," I 
 rejoined gallantly, dropping my eyes on my com- 
 panion's learned volume. 
 
 " Yes, I frankly admit that I am fond of study. 
 There is no one, after all, like the Germans. That 
 is, for facts. Eor opinions I by no means always go 
 with them. I form my opinions myself. I am 
 sorry to say, however," Mrs. Church continued, 
 " that I can hardly pretend to diffuse my acquisi- 
 tions. I am afraid I am sadly selfish ; I do little 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 139 
 
 to irrigate the soil. I belong I frankly confess it 
 to the class of absentees." 
 
 " I had the pleasure, last evening," I said, " of 
 making the acquaintance of your daughter. She 
 told me you had been a long time in Europe." 
 
 Mrs. Church smiled benignantly. " Can one 
 ever be too long ? We shall never leave it." 
 
 " Your daughter won't like that," I said, smiling 
 too. 
 
 " Has she been taking you into her confidence ? 
 She is a more sensible young lady than she some- 
 times appears. I have taken great pains with her ; 
 she is really I may be permitted to say it superbly 
 educated." 
 
 " She seemed to me a very charming girl," I 
 rejoined. "And I learned that she speaks four 
 languages." 
 
 " It is not only that," said Mrs. Church, in a 
 tone which suggested that this might be a very 
 superficial species of culture. " She has made what 
 we call de fortes Etudes such as I suppose you are 
 making now. She is familiar with the results of 
 modern science ; she keeps pace with the new his- 
 torical school" 
 
140 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 " Ah," said I, " she has gone much farther 
 than I !" 
 
 " You douhtless think I exaggerate, and you force 
 me, therefore, to mention the fact that I am able to 
 speak of such matters with a certain intelligence." 
 
 " That is very evident," I said. " But your 
 daughter thinks you ought to take her home." I 
 began to fear, as soon as I had uttered these words, 
 that they savoured of treachery to the young lady, 
 but I was reassured by seeing that they produced 
 on her mother's placid countenance no symptom 
 whatever of irritation. 
 
 " My daughter has her little theories," Mrs. 
 Church observed ; " she has, I may say, her illusions. 
 And what wonder ! What would youth be without 
 its illusions ? Aurora has a theory that she would 
 be happier in New York, in Boston, in Philadelphia, 
 than in one of the charming old cities in which our 
 lot is cast. But she is mistaken, that is all. We 
 must allow our children their illusions, must we not ? 
 But we must watch over them." 
 
 Although she herself seemed proof against dis- 
 composure, I found something vaguely irritating in 
 her soft, sweet positiveness. 
 
THE TENSION BEAUREPAS. 141 
 
 " American cities," I said, " are the paradise of 
 young girls." 
 
 " Do you mean," asked Mrs. Church, " that the 
 young girls who come from those places are angels?" 
 
 " Yes," I said, resolutely. 
 
 " This young lady what is her odd name ? 
 with whom my daughter has formed a somewhat 
 precipitate acquaintance : is Miss Euck an angel ? 
 But I won't force you to say anything uncivil. It 
 would be too cruel to make a single exception." 
 
 " Well," said I, " at any rate, in America young 
 girls have an easier lot. They have much more 
 liberty." 
 
 My companion laid her hand for an instant on 
 my arm. " My dear young friend, Pknow America, I 
 know the conditions of life there, so well. There is 
 perhaps no subject on which I have reflected more 
 than on our national idiosyncrasies." 
 
 " I am afraid you don't approve of them," said I, 
 a little brutally. 
 
 Brutal indeed my proposition was, and Mrs. 
 Church was not prepared to assent to it in this 
 rough shape. She dropped her eyes on her book, 
 with an air of acute meditation. Then, raising them 
 
142 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 " We are very crude/' she softly observed " we 
 are very crude." Lest even this delicately-uttered 
 statement should seem to savour of the vice that she 
 deprecated, she went on to explain. "There are 
 two classes of minds, you know those that hold 
 back, and those that push forward. My daughter 
 and I are not pushers ; we move with little steps. 
 We like the old, trodden paths ; we like the old, old 
 world." 
 
 " Ah," said I, " you know what you like ; there 
 is a great virtue in that." 
 
 " Yes, we like Europe ; we prefer it. We like 
 the opportunities of Europe ; we like the rest. There 
 is so much in that, you know. The world seems to 
 me to be hurrying, pressing forward so fiercely, 
 without knowing where it is going. c Whither ? ' I 
 often ask, in my little quiet way. But I have yet 
 to learn that any one can tell me." 
 
 " You're a great conservative," I observed, while 
 I wondered whether I myself could answer this 
 inquiry. 
 
 Mrs. Church gave me a smile which was equiva- 
 lent to a confession. " I wish to retain a little 
 just a little. Surely, we have done so much, we 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 143 
 
 might rest a while ; we might pause. That is all 
 my feeling -just to stop a little, to wait ! I have 
 seen so many changes. I wish to draw in, to draw 
 in to hold back, to hold back." 
 
 " You shouldn't hold your daughter back !" I 
 answered, laughing and getting up. I got up, not 
 by way of terminating our interview, for I perceived 
 Mrs. Church's exposition of her views to be by no 
 means complete, but in order to offer a chair to Miss 
 Aurora, who at this moment drew near. She thanked 
 me and remained standing, but without at first, as I 
 noticed, meeting her mother's eye. 
 
 " You have been engaged with your new acquaint- 
 ance, my dear?" this lady inquired. 
 
 " Yes, mamma dear," said the young girl, gently. 
 
 " Do you find her very edifying?" 
 
 Aurora was silent a moment ; then she looked 
 at her mother. " I don't know, mamma ; she is 
 very fresh." 
 
 I ventured to indulge in a respectful laugh. 
 " Your mother has another word for that. But I 
 must not," I added, " be crude." 
 
 " Ah, vous m'en voulez ?" inquired Mrs. Church. 
 And yet I can't pretend I said it in jest. I feel 
 
144 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 it too much. We have been having a little social 
 discussion," she said to her daughter. " There is 
 still so much to be said. And I wish," she con- 
 tinued, turning to me, " that I could give you our 
 point of view. Don't you wish, Aurora, that we 
 could give him our point of view ? " 
 
 " Yes, mamma," said Aurora. 
 
 "We consider ourselves very fortunate in our 
 point of view, don't we dearest ?" mamma demanded. 
 
 " Very fortunate, indeed, mamma." 
 
 " You see we have acquired an insight into 
 European life," the elder lady pursued. " We have 
 our place at many a European fireside. We find so 
 much to esteem so much to enjoy. Do we not, 
 my daughter ? " 
 
 " So very much, mamma," the young girl went 
 on, with a sort of inscrutable submissiveness. I 
 wondered at it ; it offered so strange a contrast to 
 the mocking freedom of her tone the night before ; 
 but while I wondered, I was careful not to let my 
 perplexity take precedence of my good manners. 
 
 " I don't know what you ladies may have found 
 at European firesides," I said, " but there can be 
 very little doubt what you have left there." 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 145 
 
 Mrs. Church got up, to acknowledge my compli- 
 ment. "We have spent some charming hours. 
 And that reminds me that we have just now such 
 an occasion in prospect. "We are to call upon some 
 Genevese friends the family of the Pasteur Galopin. 
 They are to go with us to the old library at the 
 Hotel de Ville, where there are some very interest- 
 ing documents of the period of the Eeformation ; 
 we are promised a glimpse of some manuscripts of 
 poor Servetus, the antagonist and victim, you know, 
 of Calvin. Here, of course, one can only speak of 
 Calvin under one's breath, but some day, when we 
 are more private," and Mrs. Church looked round 
 the room, " I will give you my view of him. I 
 think it has a touch of originality. Aurora is fam- 
 iliar with, are you not, my daughter, familiar with 
 my view of Calvin ?" 
 
 " Yes, mamma," said Aurora, with docility, while 
 the two ladies went to prepare for their visit to the 
 Pasteur Galopin. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
VI. 
 
 " SHE has demanded a new lamp ; I told you she 
 would ! " This communication was made me by 
 Madame Beaurepas a couple of days later. " And 
 she has asked for a new tapis de lit, and she has 
 requested me to provide Celestine with a pair of 
 light shoes. I told her that, as a general thing, 
 cooks are not shod with satin. That poor Celestine ! " 
 
 " Mrs. Church may be exacting," I said, " but she 
 is a clever little woman." 
 
 " A lady who pays but five francs and a half 
 shouldn't be too clever. C'est de'place'. I don't 
 like the type." 
 
 " What type do you call Mrs. Church's ?" 
 
 " Mon Dieu," said Madame Beaurepas, " c'est une 
 de ces mamans comme vous en avez, qui promenent 
 leur fille." 
 
 " She is trying to marry her daughter ? I don't 
 think she's of that sort." 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 147 
 
 But Madame Beaurepas shrewdly held to her 
 idea. " She is trying it in her own way ; she does 
 it very quietly. She doesn't want an American ; 
 she wants a foreigner. And she wants a mari 
 strieiwc. But she is travelling over Europe in search 
 of one. She would like a magistrate." 
 
 "A magistrate?" 
 
 " A gros bonnet of some kind ; a professor or a 
 deputy." 
 
 " I am very sorry for the poor girl," I said, 
 laughing. 
 
 "You needn't pity her too much; she's a sly 
 thing." 
 
 " Ah, for that, no ! " I exclaimed. " She's a 
 charming girl." 
 
 Madame Beaurepas gave an elderly grin. " She 
 has hooked you, eh? But the mother won't have 
 you." 
 
 I developed my idea, without heeding this 
 insinuation. " She's a charming girl, but she is a 
 little odd. It's a necessity of her position. She is 
 less submissive to her mother than she has to 
 pretend to be. That's in self-defence ; it's to make 
 her life possible." 
 
148 THE PENSION BEAUEEPAS. 
 
 " She wishes to get away from her mother," con- 
 tinued Madame Beaurepas. " She wishes to courir 
 les champs" 
 
 " She wishes to go to America, her native 
 country." 
 
 " Precisely. And she will certainly go." 
 
 " I hope so !" I rejoined. 
 
 " Some fine morning or evening she will go off 
 with a young man; probably with a young American." 
 
 " Allons done !" said I, with disgust. 
 
 " That will be quite America enough," pursued 
 my cynical hostess. " I have kept a boarding- 
 house for forty years. I have seen that type." 
 
 " Have such things as that happened chez vous ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 "Everything has happened chez moi. But nothing 
 has happened more than once. Therefore this won't 
 happen here. It will be at the next place they go 
 to, or the next. Besides, here there is no young 
 American pour la partie none except you, mon- 
 sieur. You are susceptible, but you are too reason- 
 able." 
 
 " It's lucky for you I am reasonable," I answered. 
 " It's thanks to that fact that you escape a scolding ! " 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 149 
 
 One morning, about this time, instead of coming 
 back to breakfast at the pension, after my lectures 
 at the Academy, I went to partake of this meal 
 with a fellow -student, at an ancient eating-house in 
 the collegiate quarter. On separating from my 
 friend, I took my way along that charming public 
 walk known in Geneva as the Treille, a shady 
 terrace, of immense elevation, overhanging a portion 
 of the lower town. There are spreading trees and 
 well-worn benches, and over the tiles and chimneys 
 of the mile lasse there is a view of the snow-crested 
 Alps. On the other side, as you turn your back to 
 the view, the promenade is overlooked by a row of 
 tall, sober -faced hotels, the dwellings of the local 
 aristocracy. I was very fond of the place, and 
 often resorted to it to stimulate my sense of the 
 picturesque. Presently, as I lingered there on this 
 occasion, I became aware that a gentleman was 
 seated not far from where I stood, with his back to 
 the Alpine chain, which this morning was brilliant 
 and distinct, and a newspaper, unfolded, in his lap. 
 He was not reading, however ; he was staring 
 before him in gloomy contemplation. I don't 
 know whether I recognised first the newspaper or 
 
150 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 its proprietor; one, in either case, would have 
 helped me to identify the other. One was the 
 New York Herald ; the other, of course, was Mr. 
 Ruck. As I drew nearer, he transferred his eyes 
 from the stony, high-featured masks of the gray old 
 houses on the other side of the terrace, and I knew 
 hy the expression of his face just how he had been 
 feeling about these distinguished abodes. He had 
 made up his mind that their proprietors were a 
 dusky, narrow-minded, unsociable company ; plung- 
 ing their roots into a superfluous past. I endeavoured, 
 therefore, as I sat down beside him, to suggest 
 something more impersonal. 
 
 " That's a beautiful view of the Alps," I observed. 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Ruck, without moving, " I've 
 examined it. Fine thing, in its way fine thing. 
 Beauties of nature that sort of thing. We came 
 up on purpose to look at it." 
 
 " Your ladies, then, have been with you ?" 
 
 " Yes ; they are just walking round. They're 
 awfully restless. They keep saying I'm restless, 
 but I'm as quiet as a sleeping child to them. It 
 takes," he added in a moment, drily, " the form of 
 shopping." 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 151 
 
 " Are they shopping now ? " 
 "Well, if they ain't, they're trying to. They 
 told me to sit here a while, and they'd just walk 
 round. I generally know what that means. But 
 that's the principal interest for ladies," he added, 
 retracting his irony. " We thought we'd corA e up 
 here and see the cathedral ; Mrs. Church seemed to 
 think it a dead loss that we shouldn't see the 
 cathedral, especially as we hadn't seen many yet. 
 And I had to come up to the banker's any way. 
 Well, we certainly saw the cathedral, I don't 
 know as we are any the better for it, and I don't 
 know as I should know it again. But we saw it, 
 any way. I don't know as I should want to go 
 there regularly ; but I suppose it will give us, in 
 conversation, a kind of hold on Mrs. Church, eh? 
 I guess we want something of that kind. Well," 
 Mr. Kuck continued, " I stepped in at the banker's 
 to see if there wasn't something, and they handed 
 me out a Herald." 
 
 " I hope the Herald is full of good news," I said. 
 
 " Can't say it is. D d bad news." 
 
 " Political," I inquired, " or commercial ? " 
 
 " Oh, hang politics ! It's business, sir. There 
 
152 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 ain't any business. It's] all gone to," and Mr. 
 Ruck became profane. " Nine failures in one day. 
 What do you say to that ?" 
 
 " I hope they haven't injured you," I said. 
 
 " "Well, they haven't helped me much. So many 
 houses on fire, that's all. If they happen to take 
 place in your own street, they don't increase the 
 value of your property. When mine catches, I 
 suppose they'll write and tell me one of these 
 days, when they've got nothing else to do. I didn't 
 get a blessed letter this morning; I suppose they 
 think I'm having such a good time over here it's a 
 pity to disturb me. If I could attend to business 
 for about half an hour, I'd find out something. 
 But I can't, and it's no use talking. The state of 
 my health was never so unsatisfactory as it was 
 about five o'clock this morning." 
 
 " I am very sorry to hear that," I said, " and 
 I recommend you strongly not to think of busi- 
 ness." 
 
 " I don't," Mr. Ruck replied. " I'm thinking of 
 cathedrals ; I'm thinking of the beauties of nature. 
 Come," he went on, turning round on the bench and 
 leaning his elbow on the parapet, "I'll think of 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 153 
 
 those mountains over there ; they are pretty, 
 certainly Can't you get over there ? " 
 
 " Over where ? " 
 
 " Over to those hills. Don't they run a train 
 right up ?" 
 
 " You can go to Chamouni," I said. " You can 
 go to Grindelwald and Zermatt and fifty other 
 places. You can't go by rail, but you can drive." 
 
 " All right, we'll drive and not in a one-horse 
 concern, either. Yes, Chamouni is one of the 
 places we put down. I hope there are a few nice 
 shops in Chamouni." Mr. Euck spoke with a certain 
 quickened emphasis, and in a tone more- explicitly 
 humorous than he commonly employed. I thought 
 he was excited, and yet he had not the appearance 
 of excitement. He looked like a man who has 
 simply taken, in the face of disaster, a sudden, 
 somewhat imaginative, resolution not to "worry." 
 He presently twisted himself about on his bench 
 again and began to watch for his companions. 
 "Well, they are walking round," he resumed; "I 
 guess they've hit on something, somewhere. And 
 they've got a carriage waiting outside of that arch- 
 way, too. They seem to do a big business in 
 
154 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 archways here, don't they. They like to have a 
 carriage to carry home the things those ladies of 
 mine. Then they're sure they've got them." The 
 ladies, after this, to do them justice, were not very 
 long in appearing. They came toward us, from 
 under the archway to which Mr. Euck had some- 
 what invidiously alluded, slowly and with a rather 
 exhausted step ^and expression. My companion 
 looked at them a moment, as they advanced. 
 "They're tired," he said softly. "When they're 
 tired, like that, it's very expensive." 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Euck, " I'm glad you've had 
 some company." Her husband looked at her, in 
 silence, through narrowed eyelids, and I suspected 
 that this gracious observation on the lady's part 
 was prompted by a restless conscience. 
 
 Miss Sophy glanced at me with her little straight- 
 forward air of defiance. " It would have been more 
 proper if we had had the company. Why didn't 
 you come after us, instead of sitting there ?" she 
 asked of Mr. Euck's companion. 
 
 " I was told by your father," I explained, " that 
 you were engaged in sacred rites." Miss Euck was 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 155 
 
 not gracious, though I doubt whether it was because 
 her conscience was better than her mother's. 
 
 "Well, for a gentleman there is nothing so 
 sacred as ladies' society," replied Miss Kuck, in 
 the manner of a person accustomed to giving neat 
 retorts. 
 
 " I suppose you refer to the cathedral," said her 
 mother. "Well, I must say, we didn't go back 
 there. I don't know what it may be of a Sunday, 
 but it gave me a chill." 
 
 "We discovered the loveliest little lace-shop," 
 observed the young girl, with a serenity that was 
 superior to bravado. 
 
 Her father looked at her a while ; then turned 
 about again, leaning on the parapet, and gazed away 
 at the " hills." 
 
 " Well, it was certainly cheap," said Mrs. Kuck, 
 also contemplating the Alps. 
 
 "We are going to Chamouni," said her husband. 
 " You haven't any occasion for lace at Chamouni." 
 
 " Well, I'm glad to hear you have decided to go 
 somewhere," rejoined his wife. "I don't want to 
 be a fixture at a boarding-house." 
 
156 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 "You can wear lace anywhere," said Miss Buck, 
 "if you put it on right. That's the great thing, 
 with lace. I don't think they know how to wear 
 lace in Europe. I know how I mean to wear mine; 
 but I mean to keep it till I get home." 
 
 Her father transferred his melancholy gaze to 
 her elaborately-appointed little person ; there was a 
 great deal of very new-looking detail in Miss Buck's 
 appearance. Then, in a tone of voice quite out of 
 consonance with his facial despondency, " Have you 
 purchased a great deal?" he inquired. 
 
 " I have purchased enough for you to make a 
 fuss about." 
 
 "He can't make a fuss about that," said Mrs. 
 Euck. 
 
 " Well, you'll see !" declared the young girl with 
 a little sharp laugh. 
 
 But her father went on, in the same tone : 
 " Have you got it in your pocket ? Why don't 
 you put it on why don't you hang it round you?" 
 
 " I'll hang it round you, if you don't look out !" 
 cried Miss Sophy. 
 
 "Don't you want to show it to this gentleman ?" 
 Mr. Euck continued. 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 157 
 
 "Mercy, how you do talk about that lace?" said 
 his wife. 
 
 "Well, I want to be lively. There's every 
 reason for it; we're going to Chamouni." 
 
 " You're restless ; that's what's the matter with 
 you." And Mrs. Euck got up. 
 
 " No, I ain't," said her husband. " I never felt 
 so quiet; I feel as peaceful as a little child." 
 
 Mrs. Euck, who had no sense whatever of 
 humour, looked at her daughter and at me. " Well, 
 I hope you'll improve," she said. 
 . " Send in the bills," Mr. Euck went on, rising to 
 his feet. "Don't hesitate, Sophy. I don't care 
 what you do now. In for a penny, in for a 
 pound." 
 
 Miss Euck joined her mother, with a little toss 
 of her head, and we followed the ladies to the 
 carriage. " In your place," said Miss Sophy to her 
 father, " I wouldn't talk so much about pennies and 
 pounds before strangers." 
 
 Poor Mr. Euck appeared to feel the force of this 
 observation, which, in the consciousness of a man 
 who had never been " mean," could hardly fail to 
 strike a responsive chord. He coloured a little, 
 
158 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 and he was silent; his companions got into their 
 vehicle, the front seat of which was adorned with a 
 large parcel. Mr. Ruck gave the parcel a little 
 poke with his umbrella, and then, turning to me 
 with a rather grimly penitential smile, " After all," 
 he said, "for the ladies that's the principal interest." 
 
VII. 
 
 OLD M. Pigeonneau had more thdn once proposed 
 to me to take a walk, but I had' hitherto been 
 unable to respond to so alluring an invitation. It 
 befell, however, one afternoon, that I perceived him 
 going forth upon a desultory stroll, with a certain 
 lonesomeness of demeanour that attracted my sym- 
 pathy. I hastily overtook him, and passed my 
 hand into his venerable arm, a proceeding which 
 produced in the good old man so jovial a sense of 
 comradeship that he ardently proposed we should 
 bend our steps to the English Garden ; no locality 
 less festive was worthy of the occasion. To the 
 English Garden, accordingly, we went; it lay be- 
 yond the bridge, beside the lake. It was very 
 pretty and very animated; there was a band play- 
 ing in the middle, and a considerable number of 
 persons sitting under the small trees, on benches 
 and little chairs, or strolling beside the blue water. 
 
160 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 We joined the strollers, we observed our com- 
 panions, and conversed on obvious topics. Some 
 of these last, of course, were the pretty women who 
 embellished the scene, and who, in the light of M. 
 Pigeonneau's comprehensive criticism, appeared sur- 
 prisingly numerous. He seemed bent upon our 
 making up our minds as to which was the prettiest, 
 and as this was an innocent game I consented to 
 play at it. 
 
 Suddenly M. Pigeonneau stopped, pressing my 
 arm with the liveliest emotion. " La voila, la 
 voila, the prettiest!" he quickly murmured, "coming 
 toward us, in a blue dress, with the other." It was 
 at the other I was looking, for the other, to my 
 surprise, was our interesting fellow-pensioner, the 
 daughter of a vigilant mother. M. Pigeonneau, 
 meanwhile, had redoubled his exclamations ; he 
 had recognised Miss Sophy Euck. " Oh, la belle 
 rencontre, nos aimables convives ; the prettiest girl 
 in the world, in effect !" 
 
 We immediately greeted and joined the young 
 ladies, who, like ourselves, were walking arm in arm 
 and enjoying the scene. 
 
 " I was citing you with admiration to my friend, 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 161 
 
 even before I had recognised you/' said M. Pigeon- 
 neau to Miss Buck. 
 
 "I don't believe in French compliments," re- 
 marked this young lady, presenting her back to 
 the smiling old man. 
 
 "Are you and Miss Euck walking alone?" I 
 asked of her companion. " You had better accept 
 of M. Pigeonneau's gallant protection, and of 
 mine." 
 
 Aurora Church had taken her hand out of Miss 
 Buck's arm; she looked at me, smiling, with her 
 head a little inclined, while, upon her shoulder, she 
 made her open parasol revolve. "Which is most 
 improper, to walk alone or to walk with gentle- 
 men ? I wish to do what is most improper." 
 
 " What mysterious logic governs your conduct ? " 
 I inquired. 
 
 " He thinks you can't understand him when he 
 talks like that," said Miss Buck. "But I do 
 understand you, always !" 
 
 " So I have always ventured to hope, my dear 
 Miss Buck." 
 
 " Well, if I didn't, it wouldn't be much loss," 
 rejoined this young lady. 
 
 VOL. II. M 
 
162 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 " AHons, en marche !" cried M. Pigeonneau, 
 smiling still, and undiscouraged by her inhumanity. 
 " Let us make together the tour of the garden." 
 And he imposed his society upon Miss Euck with 
 a respectful, elderly grace which was evidently 
 unable to see anything in her reluctance but 
 modesty, and was sublimely conscious of a mission 
 to place modesty at its ease. This ill-assorted 
 couple walked in front, while Aurora Church and I 
 strolled along together. 
 
 " I am sure this is more improper," said my 
 companion ; " this is delightfully improper. I don't 
 say that as a compliment to you," she added. " I 
 would say it to any man, no matter how stupid." 
 
 " Oh, I am very stupid," I answered, " but this 
 doesn't seem to me wrong." 
 
 "Not for you, no; only for me. There is 
 nothing that a man can do that is wrong, is there ? 
 En morale, you know, I mean. Ah, yes, he can 
 steal; but I think there is nothing else, is there ?" 
 
 " I don't know. One doesn't know those things 
 until after one has done them. Then one is 
 enlightened." 
 
 "And you mean that you have never been 
 
THE PENSION BEAUKEPAS. 163 
 
 enlightened ? You make yourself out very 
 good." 
 
 " That is better than making one's self out bad, 
 as you do." 
 
 The young girl glanced at me a moment, and 
 then, with her charming smile, " That's one of the 
 consequences of a false position." 
 
 " Is your position false ? " I inquired, smiling 
 too at this large formula. 
 
 " Distinctly so." 
 
 "In what way?" 
 
 " Oh, in every way. For instance, I have to 
 pretend to be a jeune fille. I am not a jeune fille ; 
 no American girl is a jeune fille ; an American girl 
 is an intelligent, responsible creature. I have to 
 pretend to be very innocent, but I am not very 
 innocent." 
 
 " You don't pretend to be very innocent ; you 
 pretend to be what shall I call it ? very wise." 
 
 " That's no pretence. I am wise." 
 
 " You are not an American girl," I ventured to 
 observe. 
 
 My companion almost stopped, looking at me ; 
 there was a little flush in her cheek. "Voila!" she 
 
164 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 said. " There's my false position. I want to be 
 an American girl, and I'm not." 
 
 "Do you want me to tell you?" I went on. 
 "An American girl wouldn't talk as you are 
 talking now." 
 
 "Please tell me," said Aurora Church, with 
 expressive eagerness. "How would she talk ?" 
 
 " I can't tell you all the things an American girl 
 would say, but I think I can tell you the things 
 she wouldn't say. She wouldn't reason out her 
 conduct, as you seem to me to do." 
 
 Aurora gave me the most flattering attention. 
 " I see. She would be simpler. To do very 
 simple things that are not at all simple that is 
 the American girl !" 
 
 I permitted myself a small explosion of hilarity. 
 " I don't know whether you are a French 
 girl, or what you are," I said, "but you are very 
 witty." 
 
 "Ah, you mean that I strike false notes !" cried 
 Aurora Church, sadly. "That's just what I want 
 to avoid. I wish you would always tell me." 
 
 The conversational union between Miss Buck 
 and her neighbour, in front of us, had evidently not 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 165 
 
 become a close one. The young lady suddenly 
 turned round to us with a question : " Don't you 
 want some ice cream ?" 
 
 "She doesn't strike false notes," I murmured. 
 
 There was a kind of pavilion or kiosk, which 
 served as a cafe, and at which the delicacies pro- 
 curable at such an establishment were dispensed. 
 Miss Buck pointed to the little green tables and 
 chairs which were set out on the gravel ; M. 
 Pigeonneau, fluttering with a sense of dissipation, 
 seconded the proposal, and we presently sat down and 
 gave our order to a nimble attendant. I managed 
 again to place myself next to Aurora Church ; our 
 companions were on the other side of the table. 
 
 My neighbour was delighted with our situation. 
 " This is best of all," she said. " I never believed 
 I should come to a cafe* with two strange men ! 
 Now, you can't persuade me this isn't, wrong." 
 
 " To make it wrong we ought to see your mother 
 coming down that path." 
 
 " Ah, my mother makes everything wrong," said 
 the young girl, attacking with a little spoon in the 
 shape of a spade the apex of a pink ice. And 
 then she returned to her idea of a moment before : 
 
166 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 " You must promise to tell me to warn me in 
 some way whenever I strike a false note. You 
 must give a little cough, like that ahem !" 
 
 " You will keep me very busy, and people will 
 think I am in a consumption." 
 
 " Voyons" she continued, " why have you never 
 talked to me more ? Is that a false note ? Why 
 haven't you been ' attentive ? ' That's what American 
 girls call it ; that's what Miss Euck calls it." 
 
 I assured myself that our companions were out 
 of ear-shot, and that Miss Ruck was much occupied 
 with a large vanilla cream. "Because you are 
 always entwined with that young lady. There 
 is no getting near you." 
 
 Aurora looked at her friend while the latter 
 devoted herself to her ice. "You wonder why I 
 like her so much, I suppose. So does mamma; 
 elle s'y perd. I don't like her particularly; je 
 n'en suis pas folle. But she gives me information ; 
 she tells me about America. Mamma has always 
 tried to prevent my knowing anything about it, and 
 I am all the more curious. And then Miss Euck 
 is very fresh." 
 
 " I may not be so fresh as Miss Euck," I said, 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 167 
 
 "but in future, when you want information, I 
 recommend you to come to me for it." 
 
 " Our friend offers to take me to America ; she 
 invites me to go back with her, to stay with her. 
 You couldn't do that, could you?" And the young 
 girl looked at me a moment. "Bon, a false note ! 
 I can see it by your face; you remind me of a 
 maitre de piano." 
 
 " You overdo the character the poor American 
 girl," I said. "Are you going to stay with that 
 delightful family?" 
 
 "I will go and stay with any one that will take 
 me or ask me. It's a real nostalgic. She says that 
 in New York in Thirty-Seventh Street I should 
 have the most lovely time." , 
 
 "I have no doubt you would enjoy it." 
 
 " Absolute liberty to begin with." 
 
 "It seems to me you have a certain liberty 
 here," I rejoined. 
 
 " Ah, this? Oh, I shall pay for this. I shall be 
 punished by mamma, and I shall be lectured by 
 Madame Galopin." 
 
 "The wife of the pasteur?" 
 
 " His digne Spouse. Madame Galopin, for mamma, 
 
168 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 is the incarnation of European opinion. That's what 
 vexes me with mamma, her thinking so much of 
 people like Madame Galopin. Going to see Madame 
 Galopin mamma calls that being in European 
 society. European society ! I'm so sick of that 
 expression; I have heard it since I was six years 
 old. Who is Madame Galopin who thinks any- 
 thing of her here ? She is nobody ; she is perfectly 
 third-rate. If I like America better than mamma, 
 I also know Europe better." 
 
 "But your mother, certainly," I objected, a 
 trifle timidly, for my young lady was excited, and 
 had a charming little passion in her eye "your 
 mother has a great many social relations all over 
 the continent." 
 
 "She thinks so, but half the people don't care 
 for us. They are not so good as we, and they 
 know it I'll do them that justice and they 
 wonder why we should care for them. When we 
 are polite to them, they think the less of us ; there 
 are plenty of people like that. Mamma thinks so 
 much of them simply because they are foreigners. 
 If I could tell you all the dull, stupid, second-rate 
 people I have had to talk to, for no better reason 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 169 
 
 than that they were de leur pays! Germans, 
 French, Italians, Turks, everything. When I com- 
 plain, mamma always says that at any rate it's 
 practice in the language. And she makes so much 
 of the English, too; I don't know what that's 
 practice in." 
 
 Before I had time to suggest an hypothesis, as 
 regards this latter point, I saw something that made 
 me rise, with a certain solemnity, from my chair. 
 This was nothing less than the neat little figure of 
 Mrs. Church a perfect model of the femme comme 
 il faut approaching our table with an impatient 
 step, and followed most unexpectedly in her advance 
 by the pre-eminent form of Mr. Euck. She had 
 evidently come in quest of her daughter, and if she 
 had commanded this gentleman's attendance, it had 
 been on no softer ground than that of his unenvied 
 paternity to her guilty child's accomplice. My 
 movement had given the alarm, and Aurora Church 
 and M. Pigeonneau got up; Miss Euck alone did 
 not, in the local phrase, derange herself. Mrs. 
 Church, beneath her modest little bonnet, looked 
 very serious, but not at all fluttered; she came 
 straight to her daughter, who received her with a 
 
170 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 smile, and then she looked all round at the rest of 
 us, very fixedly and tranquilly, without bowing. I 
 must do both these ladies the justice to mention 
 that neither of them made the least little " scene." 
 
 " I have come for you, dearest," said the mother. 
 
 " Yes, dear mamma." 
 
 " Come for you come for you," Mrs. Church 
 repeated, looking down at the relics of our little 
 feast. " I was obliged to ask Mr. Euck's assistance. 
 I was puzzled ; I thought a long time." 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Church, I was glad to see you 
 puzzled once in your life !" said Mr. Euck, with 
 friendly jocosity. " But you came pretty straight 
 for all that. I had hard work to keep up with 
 you." 
 
 " We will take a cab, Aurora," Mrs. Church went 
 on, without heeding this pleasantry " a closed one. 
 Come, my daughter." 
 
 " Yes, dear mamma." The young girl was blush- 
 ing, yet she was still smiling ; she looked round at 
 us all, and, as her eyes met mine, I thought she was 
 beautiful. " Good-bye," she said to us. " I have 
 had a lovely time" 
 
 " We must not linger," said her mother ; " it is 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 171 
 
 five o'clock. We are to dine, you know, with Ma- 
 dame Galopin." 
 
 " I had quite forgotten," Aurora declared. " That 
 will be charming." 
 
 " Do you want me to assist you to carry her back, 
 ma'am ?" asked Mr. Euck. 
 
 Mrs. Church hesitated a moment, with her serene 
 little gaze. "Do you prefer, then, to leave your 
 daughter to finish the evening with these gentle- 
 men ?" 
 
 Mr. Kuck pushed back his hat and scratched the 
 top of his head. " Well, I don't know. How would 
 you like that, Sophy ?" 
 
 "Well, I never!" exclaimed Sophy, as Mrs. 
 Church marched off with her daughter. 
 
VIII. 
 
 I HAD half expected that Mrs. Church would make 
 ine feel the weight of her disapproval of my own 
 share in that little act of revelry in the English 
 Garden. But she maintained her claim to being a 
 highly reasonable woman I could not but admire 
 the justice of this pretension by recognising my 
 irresponsibility. I had taken her daughter as I 
 found her, which was, according to Mrs. Church's 
 view, in a very equivocal position. The natural 
 instinct of a young man, in such a situation, is not 
 to protest but to profit ; and it was clear to Mrs. 
 Church that I had had nothing to do with Miss 
 Aurora's appearing in public under the insufficient 
 chaperonage of Miss Euck. Besides, she liked to 
 converse, and she apparently did me the honour to 
 believe that of all the members of the Pension 
 Beaurepas I had the most cultivated understanding. 
 I found her in the salon a couple of evenings after 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 173 
 
 the incident I have just narrated, and I approached 
 her with a view of making my peace with her, if 
 this should prove necessary. But Mrs. Church was 
 as gracious as I could have desired ; she put her 
 marker into her book, and folded her plump little 
 hands on the cover. She made no specific allusion 
 to the English Garden ; she embarked, rather, upon 
 those general considerations in which her refined 
 intellect was so much at home. 
 
 " Always at your studies, Mrs. Church," I ven- 
 tured to observe. 
 
 " Que voulez-vous ? To say studies is to say too 
 much ; one doesn't study in the parlour of a board- 
 ing-house. But I do what I can ; I have always 
 done what I can. That is all I have ever claimed." 
 
 " No one can do more, and you seem to have 
 done a great deal." 
 
 "Do you know my secret ?" she asked, with an 
 air of brightening confidence. And she paused a 
 moment before she imparted her secret " To care 
 only for the lest ! To do the best, to know the best 
 to have, to desire, to recognise, only the best. 
 That's what I have always done, in my quiet little 
 way. I have gone through Europe on my devoted 
 
174 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 little errand, seeking, seeing, heeding, only the best. 
 And it has not been for myself alone ; it has been 
 for my daughter. My daughter has had the best. 
 We are not rich, but I can say that." 
 
 " She has had you, madam," I rejoined finely. 
 
 " Certainly, such as I am, I have been devoted. 
 We have got something everywhere ; a little here, a 
 little there. That's the real secret to get some- 
 thing everywhere; you always can if you are devoted. 
 Sometimes it has been a little music, sometimes a 
 little deeper insight into the history of art ; every 
 little 'counts you know. Sometimes it has been just 
 a glimpse, a view, a lovely landscape, an impression. 
 We have always been on the look-out. Sometimes 
 it has been a valued friendship, a delightful social tie." 
 
 " Here comes the ' European society/ the poor 
 daughter's bugbear," I said to myself. " Certainly," 
 I remarked aloud I admit, rather perversely " if 
 you have lived a great deal in pensions, you must 
 have got acquainted with lots of people." 
 
 Mrs. Church dropped her eyes a moment ; and 
 then, with considerable gravity, " I think the Euro- 
 pean pension system in many respects remarkable, 
 and in some satisfactory. But of the friendships 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 175 
 
 that we have formed, few have been contracted in 
 establishments of this kind." 
 
 " I am sorry to hear that !" I said, laughing. 
 
 " I don't say it for you, though I might say it 
 for some others. We have been interested in Euro- 
 pean homes" 
 
 "Oh, I see!" 
 
 " We have the tntree of the old Genevese society. 
 I like its tone. I prefer it to that of Mr. Kuck," 
 added Mrs. Church, calmly ; " to that of Mrs. Kuck 
 and Miss Euck of Miss Euck, especially." 
 
 " Ah, the poor Eucks haven't any tone at all," I 
 said. " Don : t take them more seriously than they 
 take themselves." 
 
 " Tell me this," my companion rejoined, " are they 
 fair examples ?" 
 
 "Examples of what?" 
 
 " Of our American tendencies." 
 
 " ' Tendencies ' is a big word, dear lady ; tenden- 
 cies are difficult to calculate. And you shouldn't 
 abuse those good Eucks, who have been very kind 
 to your daughter. They have invited her to go and 
 stay with them in Thirty-Seventh Street." 
 
 " Aurora has told me. It might be very serious." 
 
176 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 " It might be very droll/' I said. 
 
 "To me," declared Mrs. Church, "it is simply 
 terrible. I think we shall have to leave the Pension 
 Beaurepas. I shall go back to Madame Chamousset." 
 
 " On account of the Eucks ?" I asked. 
 
 " Pray, why don't they go themselves ? I have 
 given them some excellent addresses written down 
 the very hours of the trains. They were going to 
 Appenzell ; I thought it was arranged." 
 
 "They talk of Chamouni now," I said; "but they 
 are very helpless and undecided." 
 
 "I will give them some Chamouni addresses. 
 Mrs. Euck will send a chaise a porteurs; I will give 
 her the name of a man who lets them lower than 
 you get them at the hotels. After that they must 
 
 go." 
 
 "Well, I doubt," I observed, "whether Mr. 
 Euck will ever really be seen on the Mer de Glace 
 in a high hat. He's not like you; he doesn't 
 value his European privileges. He takes no in- 
 terest. He regrets Wall Street, acutely. As his 
 wife says, he is very restless, but he has no curiosity 
 about Chamouni. So you must not depend too 
 much on the effect of your addresses." 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 177 
 
 " Is it a frequent "type ?" asked Mrs. Church, 
 with an air of self-control. 
 
 " I am afraid so. Mr. Kuck is a broken-down 
 man of business. He is broken-down in health, 
 and I suspect he is broken down in fortune. He 
 has spent his whole life in buying and selling ; he 
 knows how to do nothing else. His wife and 
 daughter have spent their lives, not in selling, but 
 in buying ; and they, on their side, know how to 
 do nothing else. To get something in a shop that 
 they can put on their backs that is their one idea ; 
 they haven't another in their heads. Of course they 
 spend no end of money, and they do it with an 
 implacable persistence, with a mixture of audacity 
 and of cunning. They do it in his teeth and they 
 do it behind his back; the mother protects the 
 daughter, and the daughter eggs on the mother. 
 Between them they 'are bleeding him to death." 
 
 "Ah, what a picture!" murmured Mrs. Church. 
 " I ain afraid they are very uncultivated." 
 
 " I share your fears. They are perfectly ignor- 
 ant; they have no resources. The vision of fine 
 clothes occupies their whole imagination. They 
 have not an idea even a worse one to compete 
 VOL. n. N 
 
178 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 with it. Poor Mr. Buck, who is extremely good- 
 natured and soft, seems to me a really tragic figure. 
 He is getting "bad news every day from home ; his 
 business is going to the dogs. He is unable to 
 stop it ; he has to stand and watch his fortunes ebb. 
 He has been used to doing things in a big way, 
 and he feels ' mean ' if he makes a fuss about bills. 
 So the ladies keep sending them in." 
 
 " But haven't they common sense ? Don't they 
 know they are ruining themselves ? " 
 
 " They don't believe it. The duty of an Ameri- 
 can husband and father is to keep them going. If 
 he asks them how, that's his own affair. So, by 
 way of not being mean, of being a good American 
 husband and father, poor Euck stands, staring at 
 bankruptcy." 
 
 Mrs. Church looked at me a moment, in 
 quickened meditation. " Why, if Aurora were to 
 go to stay with them, she might not even be properly 
 fed !" 
 
 "I don't, on the whole, recommend," I said, 
 laughing, " that your daughter should pay a visit to 
 Thirty-Seventh Street." 
 
 "Why should I be subjected to such trials so 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 179 
 
 sadly tprouvee ? Why should a daughter of mine 
 like that dreadful girl ?" 
 
 " Does she like her?" 
 
 " Pray, do you mean," asked my companion, 
 softly, " that Aurora is a hypocrite 1" 
 
 I hesitated a moment. " A little, since you ask 
 me. I think you have forced her to be." 
 
 Mrs. Church answered this possibly presumptu- 
 ous charge with a tranquil, candid exultation. " I 
 never force my daughter !" 
 
 " She is nevertheless in a false position," I 
 rejoined. " She hungers and thirsts to go back to 
 her own country ; she wants to ' come ' out in New 
 York, which is certainly, socially speaking, the El 
 Dorado of young ladies. She likes any one, for the 
 moment, who will talk to her of that, and serve as 
 a connecting-link with her native shores.. Miss 
 Euck performs this agreeable office." 
 
 " Your idea is, then, that if she were to go with 
 Miss Buck to America she would drop her after- 
 wards." 
 
 I complimented Mrs. Church upon her logical 
 mind, but I repudiated this cynical supposition. 
 " I can't imagine her when it should come to the 
 
180 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 point embarking with the famille Buck. But I 
 wish she might go, nevertheless:" 
 
 Mrs. Church shook her head serenely, and 
 smiled at my inappropriate zeal. " I trust my poor 
 child may never be guilty of so fatal a mistake. 
 She is completely in error ; she is wholly unadapted 
 to the peculiar conditions of American life. It 
 would not please her. She would not sympathise. 
 My daughter's ideal is not the ideal of the class of 
 young women to which Miss Buck belongs. I fear 
 they are very numerous ; they give the tone they 
 give the tone." 
 
 " It is you that are mistaken," I said ; " go home 
 for six months and see." 
 
 " I have not, unfortunately, the means to make 
 costly experiments. My daughter has had great 
 advantages rare advantages and I should be very 
 sorry to believe that au fond she does not appreci- 
 ate them. One thing is certain : I must remove 
 her from this pernicious influence. We must part 
 company with this deplorable family. If Mr. Buck 
 and his ladies cannot be induced to go to Chamouni 
 journey that no traveller with the smallest self- 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 181 
 
 respect would omit my daughter and I shall be 
 obliged to retire. We shall go to Dresden." 
 
 "To Dresden?" 
 
 " The capital of Saxony. I had arranged to go 
 there for the autumn, but it will be simpler to go 
 immediately. There are several works in the 
 gallery with which my daughter has not, I think, 
 sufficiently fflmi1ifl.risp.fi herself; it is especially 
 strong in the seventeenth century schools." 
 
 As my companion offered me this information I 
 perceived Mr. Euck come lounging in, with his 
 hands in his pockets, and his elbows making acute 
 angles. He had his usual anomalous appearance of 
 both seeking and avoiding society, and he wandered 
 obliquely toward Mrs. Church, whose last words he 
 had overheard. " The seventeenth century schools," 
 he said, slowly, as if he were weighing some very 
 small object in a very large pair of scales. " Now, 
 do you suppose they Jiad schools at that period ?" 
 
 Mrs. Church rose with a good deal of precision, 
 making no answer to this incongruous jest. She 
 clasped her large volume to her neat little bosom, 
 and she fixed a gentle, serious eye upon Mr. 
 Euck. 
 
182 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 "I had a letter this morning from Chamouni," 
 she said. 
 
 " Well," replied Mr. Buck, " I suppose you've got 
 friends all over/' 
 
 "I have friends at Chamouni, but they are 
 leaving. To their great regret." I had got up, 
 too ; I listened to this statement, and I wondered. 
 I am almost ashamed to mention the subject of my 
 agitation. I asked myself whether this was a sud- 
 den improvisation, consecrated by maternal devotion; 
 but this point has never been elucidated. " They 
 are giving up some charming rooms ; perhaps you 
 would like them. I would suggest your telegraph- 
 ing. The weather is glorious," continued Mrs. 
 Church, " and the highest peaks are now perceived 
 with extraordinary distinctness." 
 
 Mr. Euck listened, as he always listened, respect- 
 fully. "Well," he said, "I don't know as I want 
 to go up Mount Blank. That's the principal attrac- 
 tion, isn't it ?" 
 
 "There are many others. I thought I would 
 offer you an an exceptional opportunity." 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Euck, " you're right down 
 friendly. But I seem to have more opportunities 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 183 
 
 than I know what to do with. I don't seem able 
 to take hold." 
 
 " It only needs a little decision," remarked Mrs. 
 Church, with an air which was an admirable ex- 
 ample of this virtue. " I wish you good-night, sir." 
 And she moved noiselessly away. 
 
 Mr. Euck, with his long legs apart, stood staring 
 after her; then he transferred his perfectly quiet 
 eyes to me. "Does she own a hotel over there?" 
 he asked. "Has she got any stock in Mount 
 Blank ?" 
 
IX. 
 
 THE next day Madame Beaurepas handed me, with 
 her own elderly fingers, a missive, which proved to 
 be a telegram. After glancing at it, I informed her 
 that it was apparently a signal for my departure ; 
 my brother had arrived in England, and proposed 
 to me to meet him there ; he had come on business 
 and was to spend but three weeks in Europe. " But 
 my house empties itself!" cried the old woman. 
 " The famille Euck talks of leaving me, and Madame 
 Church nous fait la rv6rence" 
 
 " Mrs. Church is going away ? " 
 
 " She is packing her trunk ; she is a very extra- 
 ordinary person. Do you know what she asked me 
 this morning ? To invent some combination by which 
 the famille Euck should move away. I informed 
 her that I was not an inventor. That poor famille 
 Euck! ' Oblige me by getting rid of them,' said 
 Madame Church, as she would have asked Celestine to 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 185 
 
 remove a dish of cabbage. She speaks as if the world 
 were made for Madame Church. I intimated to her 
 that if she objected to the company there was a very 
 simple remedy ; and at present die fait ses paquets." 
 
 "She really asked you to get the Kucks out of 
 the house ? " 
 
 " She asked me to tell them that their rooms had 
 been let, three months ago, to another family. She 
 has an aplomb !" 
 
 Mrs. Church's aplomb caused me considerable 
 diversion; I am not sure that it was not, in some 
 degree, to laugh over it at my leisure that I went out 
 into the garden that evening to smoke a cigar. The 
 night was dark and not particularly balmy, and most 
 of my fellow-pensioners, after dinner, had remained 
 in-doors. A long straight walk conducted from the 
 door of the house to the ancient grille that I have 
 described, and I stood here for some time, looking 
 through the iron bars at the silent empty street. 
 The prospect was not entertaining, and I presently 
 turned away. At this moment I saw, in the distance, 
 the door of the house open and throw a shaft of 
 lamplight into the darkness. Into the lamplight 
 there stepped the figure of a female, who presently 
 
186 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 closed the door behind her. She disappeared in the 
 dusk of the garden, and I had seen her but for an 
 instant, but I remained under the impression that 
 Aurora Church, on the eve of her departure, had come 
 out for a meditative stroll. 
 
 I lingered near the gate, keeping the red tip of 
 my cigar turned toward the house, and before long a 
 young lady emerged from among the shadows of the 
 trees and encountered the light of a lamp that stood 
 just outside the gate. It was in fact Aurora Church, 
 but she seemed more bent upon conversation than 
 upon meditation. She stood a moment looking at 
 me, and then she said, 
 
 " Ought I to retire to return to the house ?" 
 
 " If you ought, I should be very sorry to tell you 
 so," I answered. 
 
 " But we are all alone ; there is no one else in the 
 garden." 
 
 " It is not the first time that I have been alone 
 with a young lady. I am not at all terrified." 
 
 "Ah, but I?" said the young girl. "I have 
 never been alone" then, quickly, she interrupted 
 herself. " Good, there's another false note !" 
 
 "Yes, I am obliged to admit that one is very false." 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 187 
 
 She stood looking at me. " I am going away to- 
 morrow ; after that there will be no one to tell me." 
 
 "That will matter little," I presently replied. 
 " Telling you will do no good." 
 
 "Ah, why do you say that?" murmured Aurora 
 Church. 
 
 I said it partly because it was true ; but I said 
 it for other reasons, as well, which it was hard to 
 define. Standing there bare-headed, in the night 
 air, in the vague light, this young lady looked 
 extremely interesting ; and the interest of her ap- 
 pearance was not diminished by a suspicion on my 
 own part that she had come into the garden knowing 
 me to be there. I thought her a charming girl, 
 and I felt very sorry for her ; but as I looked at her, 
 the terms in which Madame Beaurepas had ventured 
 to characterise her recurred to me with a certain 
 force. I had professed a contempt for them at the 
 time, but it now came into my head that perhaps 
 this unfortunately situated, this insidiously mutinous, 
 young creature was looking out for a preserver. 
 She was certainly not a girl to throw herself at a 
 man's head, but it was possible that in her intense 
 her almost morbid desire to put into effect an 
 
188 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 ideal which was perhaps after all charged with as 
 many, fallacies as her mother affirmed, she might do 
 something reckless and irregular something in 
 which a sympathetic compatriot, as yet unknown, 
 would find his profit. The image, unshaped though 
 it was, of this sympathetic compatriot filled me 
 with a sort of envy. For some moments I was 
 silent, conscious of these things, and then I answered 
 her question. " Because some things some differ- 
 ences are felt, not learned. To you liberty is not 
 natural ; you are like a person who has bought a 
 repeater, and, in his satisfaction, is constantly making 
 it sound. To a real American girl her liberty is a 
 very vulgarly-ticking old clock." 
 
 " Ah, you mean, then," said the poor girl, " that 
 my mother has ruined me ?" 
 
 "Kuinedyou?" 
 
 " She has so perverted my mind that when I try 
 to be natural I am necessarily immodest." 
 
 " That again is a false note," I said, laughing. 
 
 She turned away. " I think you are cruel." 
 
 " By no means," I declared ; " because, for my 
 own taste, I prefer you as as " 
 
 I hesitated, and she turned back. "As what?" 
 
THE PENSION BEAUKEPAS. 189 
 
 "As you are." 
 
 She looked at me a while again, and then she 
 said, in a little reasoning voice that reminded me of 
 her mother's, only that it was conscious and studied, 
 " I was not aware that I am under any particular 
 obligation to please you!" And then she gave a 
 clear laugh, quite at variance with her voice. 
 
 " Oh, there is no obligation," I said, " but one 
 has preferences. I am very sorry you are going 
 away." 
 
 " What does it matter to you ? You are going 
 yourself." 
 
 " As I am going in a different direction, that 
 makes all the greater separation." 
 
 She answered nothing ; she stood looking through 
 the bars of the tall gate at the empty, dusky street. 
 " This grille is like a cage," she said at last. 
 
 " Fortunately, it is a cage that will open." And 
 I laid my hand on the lock. 
 
 " Don't open it," and she pressed the gate back. 
 " If you should open it I would go out and never 
 return." 
 
 " Where should you go ?" 
 
 " To America." 
 
190 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 "Straight away?" 
 
 " Somehow or other. I would go to the American 
 consul. I would beg him to give me money to 
 help me." 
 
 I received this assertion without a smile ; I was 
 not in a smiling humour. On the contrary, I felt 
 singularly excited, and I kept my hand on the lock 
 of the gate. I believed (or I thought I believed) 
 what my companion -said, and I had absurd as it 
 may appear an irritated vision of her throwing 
 herself upon consular sympathy. It seemed to me, 
 for a moment, that to pass out of that gate with this 
 yearning, straining young creature would be to pass 
 into some mysterious felicity. If I were only a hero 
 of romance, I would offer, myself, to take her to 
 America. 
 
 In a moment more, perhaps, I should have per- 
 suaded myself that I was one, but at this juncture I 
 heard a sound that was not romantic. It proved to 
 be the very realistic tread of Celestine, the cook, 
 who stood grinning at us as we turned about from 
 our colloquy. 
 
 " I ask lien pardon" said Celestine. " The mother 
 of mademoiselle desires that mademoiselle should 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 191 
 
 come in immediately. M. le Pasteur Galopin has 
 come to make his adieux to ces dames" 
 
 Aurora gave me only one glance, but it was 
 a touching one. Then she slowly departed with 
 Celestine. 
 
 The next morning, on coming into the garden, 
 I found that Mrs. Church and her daughter had 
 departed. I was informed of this fact by old M. 
 Pigeonneau, who sat there under a tree, having his 
 coffee at a little green table. 
 
 " I have nothing to envy you," he said ; " I had 
 the last glimpse of that charming Miss Aurora." 
 
 " I had a very late glimpse," I answered, " and it 
 was all I could possibly desire." 
 
 " I have always noticed," rejoined M. Pigeonneau, 
 " that your desires are more moderate than mine. 
 Que voulez-vous ? I am of the old school. Je 
 crois que la race se perd. I regret the departure 
 of that young girl : she had an enchanting smile. 
 Ce sera une femme d'esprit. For the mother, I can 
 console myself. I am not sure that she was a 
 femme d'esprit, though she wished to pass for one. 
 Kound, rosy, poteUe, she yet had not the tempera- 
 ment of her appearance ; she was a femme aust&re. 
 
192 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 I have often noticed that contradiction in American 
 ladies. You see a plump little woman, with a 
 speaking eye and the contour and complexion of a 
 ripe peach, and if you venture to conduct yourself 
 in the smallest degree in accordance with these 
 indices, you discover a species of Methodist of 
 what do you call it ? of Quakeress. On the other 
 hand, you encounter a tall, lean, angular person, 
 without colour, without grace, all elbows and knees, 
 and you find it's a nature of the tropics ! The 
 women of duty look like coquettes, and the others 
 look like alpenstocks ! However, we have still the 
 handsome Madame Euck a real femme de Rubens, 
 celle-l&. It is very true that to talk to her one 
 must know the Flemish tongue !" 
 
 I had determined, in accordance with my 
 brother's telegram, to go away in the afternoon ; 
 so that, having various duties to perform, I left 
 M. Pigeonneau to his international comparisons. 
 Among other things, I went in the course of the 
 morning to the banker's, to draw money for my 
 journey, and there I found Mr. Euck, with a pile of 
 crumpled letters in his lap, his chair tipped back and 
 his eyes gloomily fixed on the fringe of the green 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 19S 
 
 plush table-cloth. I timidly expressed the hope that 
 he had got better news from home ; whereupon he 
 gave me a look in which, considering his provocation, 
 the absence of irritation was conspicuous. 
 
 He took up his letters in his large hand, and 
 crushing them together held it out to me. " That 
 epistolary matter," he said, "is worth about five 
 cents. But I guess/' he added, rising, " I have 
 taken it in by this time." When I had drawn my 
 money, I asked him to come and breakfast with me 
 at the little brasserie, much favoured by students, 
 to which I used to resort in the old town. "I 
 couldn't eat, sir," he said, "I couldn't eat. Bad 
 news takes away the appetite. But I guess I'll go 
 with you, so that I needn't go to table down there 
 at the pension. The old woman down there is 
 always accusing me of turning up my nose at her 
 food. Well, I guess I shan't turn up my nose at 
 anything now." 
 
 We went to the little brasserie, where poor Mr. 
 Euck made the lightest possible breakfast. But if 
 he ate very little, he talked a great deal ; he talked 
 about business, going into a hundred details in which 
 I was quite unable to follow him. His talk was 
 VOL. n. o 
 
194 THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 
 
 not angry nor bitter; it was a long, meditative, 
 melancholy monologue ; if it had been a trifle less 
 incoherent I should almost have called it philosophic. 
 I was very sorry for him ; I wanted to do some- 
 thing for him, but the only thing I could do was, 
 when we had breakfasted, to see him safely back to 
 the Pension Beaurepas. We went across the Treille 
 and down the Corraterie, out of which we turned 
 into the Hue du Khone. In this latter street, as all 
 the world knows, are many of those brilliant 
 jewellers' shops for which Geneva is famous. I 
 always admired their glittering windows, and never 
 passed them without a lingering glance. Even on 
 this occasion, preoccupied as I was with my im- 
 pending departure and with my companion's troubles, 
 I suffered my eyes to wander along the precious 
 tiers that flashed and twinkled behind the huge, 
 clear plates of glass. Thanks to this inveterate 
 habit, I made a discovery. In the largest and most 
 brilliant of these establishments I perceived two 
 ladies, seated before the counter with an air of ab- 
 sorption which sufficiently proclaimed their identity. 
 I hoped my companion would not see them, but as 
 we came abreast of the door, a little beyond, we 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 195 
 
 found it open to the warm summer air. Mr. Kuck 
 happened to glance in, and he immediately recog- 
 nised his wife and daughter. He slowly stopped, 
 looking at them; I wondered what he would do. 
 The salesman was holding up a bracelet before 
 them, on its velvet cushion, and flashing it about in 
 an irresistible manner. 
 
 Mr. Euck said nothing, but he presently went 
 in, and I did the same. 
 
 " It will be an opportunity," I remarked, as 
 cheerfully as possible, " for me to bid good-bye to 
 the ladies." 
 
 They turned round when Mr. Euck came in, and 
 looked at him without confusion. " Well, you had 
 better go home to breakfast," remarked his wife. 
 Miss Sophy made no remark, but she took the brace- 
 let from the attendant and gazed at it very fixedly. 
 Mr. Euck seated himself on an empty stool and 
 looked round the shop. 
 
 " Well, you have been here before," said his 
 wife ; " you were here the first day we came." 
 
 Miss Euck extended the precious object in her 
 hands towards me. " Don't you think that sweet ?" 
 she inquired. 
 
196 THE PENSION BEATJREPAS. 
 
 I looked at it a moment. " No, I think it's ugly." 
 
 She glanced at me a moment, incredulous. " Well, 
 I don't believe you have any taste." 
 
 " Why, sir,. it's just lovely," said Mrs. Euck. 
 
 " You'll see it some day on me, any way," her 
 daughter declared. 
 
 " No, he won't," said Mr. Euck quietly. 
 
 "It will be his own fault, then," Miss Sophy 
 observed. 
 
 " Well, if we are going to Chamouni we want to 
 get something here," said Mrs. Euck. " We may 
 not have another chance." 
 
 Mr. Euck was still looking round the shop, 
 whistling in a very low tone. " We ain't going to 
 Chamouni. We are going to New York city, 
 straight." 
 
 " WeU, I'm glad to hear that," said Mrs. Euck. 
 " Don't you suppose we want to take something 
 home ?" 
 
 " If we are going straight back I must have that 
 bracelet," her daughter declared. " Only I don't 
 want a velvet case ; I want a satin case." 
 
 " I must bid you good-bye," I said to the ladies. 
 " I am leaving Geneva in an hour or two." 
 
THE PENSION BEAUREPAS. 197 
 
 " Take a good look at that bracelet, so you'll 
 know it when you see it," said Miss Sophy. 
 
 " She's bound to have something," remarked her 
 mother, almost proudly. 
 
 Mr. Euck was still vaguely inspecting the shop ; 
 he was still whistling a little. " I am afraid he is 
 not at all well," I said, softly, to his wife. 
 
 She twisted her head a little, and glanced at him. 
 
 " Well, I wish he'd improve !" she exclaimed. 
 
 "A satin case, and a nice one !" said Miss Euck 
 to the shopman. 
 
 I bade Mr. Euck good-bye. " Don't wait for me," 
 he said, sitting there on his stool, and not meeting 
 my eye. " I've got to see this thing through." 
 
 I went back to the Pension Beaurepas, and when, 
 an hour later, I left it with my luggage, the family 
 had not returned. 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTEES. 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 From Miss MIRANDA HOPE, in Paris, to Mrs. ABRAHAM 
 C. HOPE, at Bangor, Maine. 
 
 SEPTEMBER 5th, 1879. 
 MY DEAR MOTHER 
 
 I HAVE kept you posted as far as Tuesday week last, 
 and, although my letter will not have reached you 
 yet, I will begin another, before my news accumu- 
 lates too much. I am glad you show my letters 
 round in the family, for I like them all to know 
 what I am doing, and I can't write to every one, 
 though I try to answer all reasonable expectations. 
 But there are a great many unreasonable ones, as I 
 suppose you know not yours, dear mother, for I 
 am bound to say that you never required of me 
 more than was natural. You see you are reaping 
 
202 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 your reward : I write to you before I write to any 
 one else. 
 
 There is one thing, I hope that you don't show 
 any of my letters to William Platt. If he wants 
 to see any of my letters, he knows the right way 
 to go to work. I wouldn't have him see one of 
 these letters, written for circulation in the family, 
 for anything in the world. If he wants one for 
 himself, he has got to write to me first. Let him 
 write to me first, and then I will see about answer- 
 ing him. You can show him this if you like ; but 
 if you show him anything more, I will never write 
 to you again. 
 
 I told you in my last about my farewell to 
 England, my crossing the channel, and my first 
 impressions of Paris. I have thought a great deal 
 about that lovely England since I left it, and all 
 the famous historic scenes I visited ; but I have come 
 to the conclusion that it is not a country in which I 
 should care to reside. The position of woman does 
 not seem to me at all satisfactory, and that is a point, 
 you know, on which I feel very strongly. It seems 
 to me that in England they play a very faded-out 
 part, and those with whom I conversed had a kind 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 203 
 
 of depressed and humiliated tone; a little dull, 
 tame look, as if they were used to being snubbed 
 and bullied, which made me want to give them a 
 good shaking. There are a great many people and 
 a great many things, too over here that I should 
 like to perform that operation upon. I should like 
 to shake the starch out of some of them, and the 
 dust out of the others. I know fifty girls in Bangor 
 that come much more up to my notion of the stand 
 a truly noble woman should take, than those young 
 ladies in England. But they had a most lovely way 
 of speaking (in England), and the men are remark- 
 ably handsome. (You can show this to William Platt, 
 if you like.) 
 
 I gave you my first impressions of Paris, which 
 quite came up to my expectations, much as I had 
 heard and read about it. The objects of interest are 
 extremely numerous, and the climate is remarkably 
 cheerful and sunny. I should say the position of 
 woman here was considerably higher, though by no 
 means coming up to the American standard. The 
 manners of the people are in some respects ex- 
 tremely peculiar, and I feel at last that I am indeed 
 in foreign parts. It is, however, a truly elegant city 
 
204 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 (very superior to New York), and I have spent a 
 great deal of time in visiting the various monuments 
 and palaces. I won't give you an account of all my 
 wanderings, though I have been most indefatigable ; 
 for I am keeping, as I told you before, a most ex- 
 haustive journal, which I will allow you the privilege 
 of reading on my return to Bangor. I am getting 
 on remarkably well, and I must say I am sometimes 
 surprised at my universal good fortune. It only 
 shows what a little energy and common-sense will 
 accomplish. I have discovered none of these objec- 
 tions to a young lady travelling in Europe by her- 
 self, of which we heard so much before I left, and I 
 don't expect I ever shall, for I certainly don't mean 
 to look for them. I know what I want and I always 
 manage to get it. 
 
 I have received a great deal of politeness some 
 of it really most pressing, and I have experienced no 
 drawbacks whatever. I have made a great many 
 pleasant acquaintances in travelling round (both 
 ladies and gentlemen), and had a great many most 
 interesting talks. I have collected a great deal of 
 information, for which I refer you to my journal. I 
 assure you my journal is going to be a splendid 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 205 
 
 thing. I do just exactly as I do in Bangor, and 
 I find I do perfectly right ; and at any rate, I don't 
 care if I don't. I didn't come to Europe to lead a 
 merely conventional life ; I could do that at Bangor. 
 You know I never would do it at Bangor, so it isn't 
 likely I am going to make myself miserable over here. 
 So long as I accomplish what I desire, and make my 
 money hold out, I shall regard the thing as a suc- 
 cess. Sometimes I feel rather lonely, especially in 
 the evening ; but I generally manage to interest my- 
 self in something or in some one. In the evening I 
 usually read up about the objects of interest I have 
 visited during the day, or I post up my journal. 
 Sometimes I go to the theatre ; or else I play the 
 piano in the public parlour. The public parlour at 
 the hotel isn't much ; but the piano is better than 
 that fearful old thing at the Sebago House. Some- 
 times I go downstairs and talk to the lady who keeps 
 the books a French lady, who is remarkably polite. 
 She is very pretty, and always wears a black dress, 
 with the most beautiful fit; she speaks a little 
 English ; she tells me she had to learn it in order 
 to converse with the Americans who come in such 
 numbers to this hotel. She has given me a great 
 
206 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 deal of information about the position of woman in 
 France, and much of it is very encouraging. But 
 she has told me at the same time some things that I 
 should not like to write to you (I am hesitating even 
 about putting them into my journal), especially if 
 my letters are to be handed round in the family. I 
 assure you they appear to talk about things here 
 that we never think of mentioning at Bangor, or even 
 of thinking about. She seems to think she can tell 
 me everything, because I told her I was travelling 
 for general culture. Well, I do want to know so 
 much that it seems sometimes as if I wanted to know 
 everything ; and yet there are some things that I 
 think I don't want to know. But, as a general thing, 
 everything is intensely interesting ; I don't mean 
 only everything that this French lady tells me, but 
 everything I see and hear for myself. I feel really 
 as if I should gain all I desire. 
 
 I meet a great many Americans, who, as a general 
 thing, I must say, are not as polite to me as the 
 people over here. The people over here especially 
 the gentlemen -are much more what I should call 
 attentive. I don't know whether Americans are more 
 sincere ; I haven't yet made up my mind about that. 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTEKS. 207 
 
 The only drawback I experience is when Americans 
 sometimes express surprise that I should be travel- 
 ling round alone ; so you see it doesn't come from 
 Europeans. I always have my answer ready : " For 
 general culture, to acquire the languages, and to see 
 Europe for myself;" and that generally seems to 
 satisfy them. Dear mother, my money holds out 
 very well, and it is real interesting. 
 
II. 
 
 From the Same to the Same. 
 
 SEPTEMBER 16th. 
 
 SINCE I last wrote to you I have left that hotel, and 
 come to live in a French family. It's a kind of 
 boarding-house combined with a kind of school ; 
 only it's not like an American boarding-house, nor 
 like an American school either. There are four or five 
 people here that have come to learn the language 
 not to take lessons, but to have an opportunity for 
 conversation. I was very glad to come to such a 
 place, for I had begun to realise that I was not 
 making much progress with the French, It seemed 
 to me that I should feel ashamed to have spent two 
 months in Paris, and not to have acquired more 
 insight into the language. I had always heard so 
 much of French conversation, and I found I was 
 having no more opportunity to practise it than if I 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 209 
 
 had remained at Bangor. In fact, I used to hear a 
 great deal more at Bangor, from those French Cana- 
 dians that came down to cut the ice, than I saw I 
 should ever hear at that hotel. The lady that kept 
 the books seemed to want so much to talk to me 
 in English (for the sake of practice, too, I suppose), 
 that I couldn't bear to let her know I didn't like it. 
 The chambermaid was Irish, and all the waiters were 
 German, so that I never heard a word of French 
 spoken. I suppose you might hear a great deal in 
 the shops ; only, as I don't buy anything I prefer 
 to spend my money for purposes of culture I don't 
 have that advantage. 
 
 I have been thinking some of taking a teacher, 
 but I am well acquainted with the grammar already, 
 and teachers always keep you bothering over the 
 verbs. I was a good deal troubled, for I felt as if I 
 didn't want to go away without having, at least, got 
 a general idea of French conversation. The theatre 
 gives you a good deal of insight, and, as I told you 
 in my last, I go a good deal to places of amusement. 
 I find no difficulty whatever in going to such places 
 alone, and am always treated with the politeness 
 which, as I told you before, I encounter everywhere. 
 
 VOL. II. P 
 
210 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 I see plenty of other ladies alone (mostly French), 
 and they generally seem to be enjoying themselves 
 as much as I. But, at the theatre, every one talks 
 so fast that I can scarcely make out what they say; 
 and, besides, there are a great many vulgar expres- 
 sions which it is unnecessary to learn. But it was 
 the theatre, nevertheless, that put me on the track. 
 The very next day after I wrote to you last, I went 
 to the Palais Eoyal, which is one of the principal 
 theatres in Paris. It is very small, but it is very 
 celebrated, and in my guide-book it is marked with 
 two stars, which is a sign of importance attached 
 only to first-class objects of interest. But after I 
 had been there half an hour I found I couldn't 
 understand a single word of the play, they gabbled 
 it off so fast, and they made use of such peculiar 
 expressions. I felt a good deal disappointed and 
 troubled I was afraid I shouldn't gain all I had 
 come for. But while I was thinking it over 
 thinking what I should do I heard two gentle- 
 men talking behind me. It was between the acts, 
 and I couldn't help listening to what they said. 
 They were talking English, but I guess they were 
 Americans. 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTEKS. 211 
 
 "Well," said one of them, "it all depends on 
 what you are after. I'm after French ; that's what 
 I'm after." 
 
 " Well," said the other, " I'm after Art." 
 
 " Well," said the first, " I'm after Art too ; but 
 I'm after French most." 
 
 Then, dear mother, I am sorry to say the second 
 one swore a little! He said, " Oh, damn French ! " 
 
 "No, I won't damn French," said his friend. 
 " I'll acquire it that's what I'll do with it. I'll go 
 right into a family." 
 
 " What farnily'll you go into? " 
 
 " Into some French family. That's the only way 
 to do to go to some place where you can talk. If 
 you're after Art, you want to stick to the galleries ; 
 you want to go right through the Louvre, room by 
 room ; you want to take a room a day, or something 
 of that sort. But, if you want to acquire French, the 
 thing is to look out for a family. There are lots of 
 French families here that take you to board and teach 
 you. My second cousin that young lady I told you 
 about she got in with a crowd like that, and they 
 booked her right up in three months. They just took 
 her right in and they talked to her. That's what 
 
212 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 they do to you ; they set you right down and they 
 talk at you. You've got to understand them ; you 
 can't help yourself. That family my cousin was 
 with has moved away somewhere, or I should try 
 and get in with them. They were very smart 
 people, that family ; after she left, my cousin corres- 
 ponded with them in Trench. But I mean to find 
 some other crowd, if it takes a lot of trouble ! " 
 
 I listened to all this with great interest, and 
 when he spoke about his cousin I was on the point 
 of turning around to ask him the address of the 
 family that she was with ; but the next moment he 
 said they had moved away; so I sat still. The 
 other gentleman, however, didn't seem to be affected 
 in the same way as I was. 
 
 " Well," he said, " you may follow up that if you 
 like ; I mean to follow up the pictures. I don't 
 believe there is ever going to be any considerable 
 demand in the United States for French ; but I can 
 promise you that in about ten years there'll be a big 
 demand for Art ! And it won't be temporary either." 
 
 That remark may be very true, but I don't care 
 anything about the demand ; I want to know French 
 for its own sake. I don't want to think I have 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 213 
 
 been all this while without having gained an insight 
 .... The very next day, I asked the lady who kept 
 the books at the hotel whether she knew of any 
 family that could take me to board and give me the 
 benefit of their conversation. She instantly threw 
 up her hands, with several little shrill cries (in their 
 French way, you know), and told me that her dearest 
 friend kept a regular place of that kind. If she had 
 known I was looking out for such a place she would 
 have told me before ; she had not spoken of it her- 
 self, because she didn't wish to injure the hotel by 
 being the cause of my going way. She told me 
 this was a charming family, who had often received 
 American ladies (and others as well) who wished to 
 follow up the language, and she was sure I should 
 be delighted with them. So she gave me their 
 address, and offered to go with me to introduce me. 
 But I was in such a hurry that I went off by my- 
 self, and I had no trouble in finding these good 
 people. They were delighted to receive me, and I 
 was very much pleased with what I saw of them. 
 They seemed to have plenty of conversation, and 
 there will be no trouble about that. 
 
 I came here to stay about three days ago, and 
 
214 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS 
 
 by this time I have seen a great deal of them. The 
 price of board struck me as rather high ; but I must 
 remember that a quantity of conversation is thrown 
 in. I have a very pretty little room without any 
 carpet, but with seven mirrors, two clocks, and five 
 curtains. I was rather disappointed after I arrived 
 to find that there are several other Americans here 
 for the same purpose as myself. At least there are 
 three Americans and two English people ; and also 
 a German gentleman. I am afraid, therefore, our 
 conversation will be rather mixed, but I have not 
 yet time to judge. I try to talk with Madame de 
 Maisonrouge all I can (she is the lady of the house, 
 and the real family consists only of herself and her 
 two daughters). They are all most elegant, interest- 
 ing women, and I am sure we shall become intimate 
 friends. I will write you more about them in my 
 next. Tell William Platt I don't care what he does. 
 
III. 
 
 From Miss VIOLET KAY, in Paris, to Miss AGNES 
 KICH, in New York. 
 
 September 2Ist. 
 
 WE had hardly got here when father received a 
 telegram saying he would have to come right back 
 to New York. It was for something about his 
 business I don't know exactly what ; you know I 
 never understand those things, never want to. We 
 had just got settled at the hotel, in some charming 
 rooms, and mother and I, as you may imagine, were 
 greatly annoyed. Father is extremely fussy, as you 
 know, and his first idea, as soon as he found he 
 should have to go back, was that we should go back 
 with him. He declared he would never leave us in 
 Paris alone, and that we must return and come out 
 again. I don't know what he thought would happen 
 to us ; I suppose he thought we should be too 
 
216 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 extravagant. It's father's theory that we are always 
 running up bills, whereas a little observation would 
 show him that we wear the same old rags FOR 
 MONTHS. But father has no observation; he has 
 nothing but theories. Mother and I, however, have, 
 fortunately, a great deal of practice, and we succeeded 
 in making him understand that we wouldn't budge 
 from Paris, and that we would rather be chopped 
 into small pieces than cross that dreadful ocean 
 again. So, at last, he decided to go back alone, 
 and to leave us here for three months. But, to 
 show you how fussy he is, he refused to let us stay 
 at the hotel, and insisted that we should go into a 
 family. I don't know what put such an idea into 
 his head, unless it was some advertisement that he 
 saw in one of the American papers that are published 
 here. 
 
 There are families here who receive American 
 and English people to live with them, under the 
 pretence of teaching them French. You may imagine 
 what people they are I mean the families them- 
 selves. But the Americans who choose this peculiar 
 manner of seeing Paris must be actually just as bad. 
 Mother and I were horrified, and declared that main 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 217 
 
 force should not remove us from the hotel. But 
 father has a way of arriving at his ends which is 
 more efficient than violence. He worries and fusses ; 
 he " nags," as we used to say at school ; and, when 
 mother and I are quite worn out, his triumph is 
 assured. Mother is usually worn out more easily 
 than I, and she ends by siding with father ; so that, 
 at last, when they combine their forces against poor 
 little me, I have to succumb. You should have 
 heard the way father went on about this " family " 
 plan ; he talked to every one he saw about it ; he 
 used to go round to the banker's and talk to the 
 people there the people in the post-office ; he used 
 to try and exchange ideas about it with the waiters . 
 at the hotel. He said it would be more safe, more 
 respectable, more economical ; that I should perfect 
 my French ; that mother would learn how a French 
 household is conducted ; that he should feel more 
 easy, and five hundred reasons more. They were 
 none of them good, but that made no difference. 
 It's all humbug, his talking about economy, when 
 every one knows that business in America has com- 
 pletely recovered, that the prostration is all over, 
 and that immense fortunes are being made. We 
 
218 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 have been economising for the last five years, and I 
 supposed we came abroad to reap the benefits of it. 
 
 As for my French, it is quite as perfect as I 
 want it to be. (I assure you I am often surprised 
 at my own fluency, and, when I get a little more 
 practice in the genders and the idioms, I shall do 
 very well in this respect.) To make a long story 
 short, however, father carried his point, as usual; 
 mother basely deserted me at the last moment, and, 
 after holding out alone for three days, I told them 
 to do with me what they pleased ! Father lost three 
 steamers in succession by remaining in Paris to 
 argue with me. You know he is like the school- 
 master in Goldsmith's "Deserted Village" "e'en 
 though vanquished, he would argue still." He and 
 mother went to look at some seventeen families 
 (they had got the addresses somewhere), while I 
 retired to my sofa, and would have nothing to do 
 with it. At last they made arrangements, and I 
 was transported to the establishment from which I 
 now write you. I write you from the bosom of a 
 Parisian manage from the depths of a second-rate 
 boarding-house. 
 
 Father only left Paris after he had seen us what 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 219 
 
 he calls comfortably settled here, and had informed 
 Madame de Maisonrouge (the mistress of the estab- 
 lishment the head of the " family ") that he wished 
 my French pronunciation especially attended to. 
 The pronunciation, as it happens, is just what I am 
 most at home in ; if he had said my genders or my 
 idioms there would have been some sense. But 
 poor father has no tact, and this defect is especially 
 marked since he has been in Europe. He will be 
 absent, however, for three months, and mother and 
 I shall breathe more freely ; the situation will be 
 less intense. I must confess that we breathe more 
 freely than I expected, in this place, where we have 
 him for about a week. I was sure, before we came, 
 that it would prove to be an establishment of the 
 lowest description ; but I must say that, in this re- 
 spect, I am agreeably disappointed. The French are 
 so clever that they know even how to manage a 
 place of this kind. Of course it is very disagreeable 
 to live with strangers, but as, after all, if I were not 
 staying with Madame de Maisonrouge I should not 
 be living in the Faubourg Si-Germain, I don't know 
 that from the point of view of exclusiveness it is 
 any great loss to be here. 
 
220 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 Our rooms are very prettily arranged, and the 
 table is remarkably good. Mamma thinks the whole 
 thing the place and the people, the manners and 
 customs very amusing ; but mamma is very easily 
 amused. As for me, you know, all that I ask is to 
 be let alone, and not to have people's society forced 
 upon me, I have never wanted for society of my 
 own choosing, and, so long as I retain possession of 
 my faculties, I don't suppose I ever shall. As I said, 
 however, the place is very well managed, and I suc- 
 ceed in doing as I please, which, you know, is my 
 most cherished pursuit. Madame de Maisonrouge 
 has a great deal of tact much more than poor 
 father. She is what they call here a "belle femme, 
 which means that she is a tall, ugly woman, with 
 style. She dresses very well, and has a great deal 
 of talk ; but, though she is a very good imitation of 
 a lady, I never see her behind the dinner-table, in 
 the evening, smiling and bowing, as the people come 
 in, and looking all the while at the dishes and the 
 servants, without thinking of a dame de comptoir 
 blooming in a corner of a shop or a restaurant. I 
 am sure that, in spite of her fine name, she was once 
 a dame de comptoir. I am also sure that, in spite 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 221 
 
 of her smiles and the pretty things she says to every 
 one, she hates us all, and would like to murder us. 
 She is a hard, clever Frenchwoman, who would like 
 to amuse herself and enjoy her Paris, and she must 
 be bored to death at passing all her time in the 
 midst of stupid English people who mumble broken 
 French at her. Some day she will poison the soup 
 or the vin rouge ; but I hope that will not be until 
 after mother and I shall have left her. She has two 
 daughters, who, except that one is decidedly pretty, 
 are meagre imitations of herself. 
 
 The " family," for the rest, consists altogether of 
 our beloved compatriots, and of still more beloved 
 Englanders. There is an Englishman here, with 
 his sister, and they seem to be rather nice people. 
 He is remarkably handsome, but excessively affected 
 and patronising, especially to us Americans ; and I 
 hope to have a chance of biting his head off before 
 long. The sister is very pretty, and, apparently, 
 very nice; but, in costume, she is Britannia incarnate. 
 There is a very pleasant little Frenchman when 
 they are nice they are charming and a German 
 doctor, a big, blond man, who looks like a great 
 white bull ; and two Americans, besides mother and 
 
222 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 me. One of them is a young man from Boston, 
 an sesthetic young man, who talks about its being " a 
 real Corot day," etc., and a young woman a girl, a 
 female, I don't know what to call her from Ver- 
 mont, or Minnesota, or some such place. This young 
 woman is the most extraordinary specimen of artless 
 Yankeeism that I ever encountered ; she is really 
 too horrible. I have been three times to Clementine 
 about your underskirt, etc. 
 
IV. 
 
 From Louis LEVERETT, in Paris, to HARVARD 
 TREMONT, in Boston. 
 
 SEPTEMBER 25th. 
 MY DEAR HARVARD 
 
 I HAVE carried out my plan, of which I gave you a 
 hint in my last, and I only regret that I should not 
 have done it before. It is human nature, after all, 
 that is the most interesting thing in the world, and 
 it only reveals itself to the truly earnest seeker. 
 There is a want of earnestness in that life of hotels 
 and railroad trains, which so many of our country- 
 men are content to lead in this strange Old World, 
 and I was distressed to find how far I, myself, had 
 been led along the dusty, beaten track. I had, how- 
 ever, constantly wanted to turn aside into more unfre- 
 quented ways ; to plunge beneath the surface and see 
 what I should discover. But the opportunity had 
 always been missing ; somehow, I never meet those 
 
224 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 opportunities that we hear about and read about 
 the things that happen to people in novels and bio- 
 graphies. And yet I am always on the watch to take 
 advantage of any opening that may present itself ; I 
 am always looking out for experiences, for sensations 
 I might almost say for adventures. 
 
 The great thing is to live, you know to feel, to 
 be conscious of one's possibilities ; not to pass 
 through life mechanically and insensibly, like a 
 letter through the post-office. There are times, my 
 dear Harvard, when I feel as if I were really capable 
 of everything capable de tout, as they say here 
 of the greatest excesses as well as the greatest 
 heroism. Oh, to be able to say that one has lived 
 qu'on a vtcu, as they say here that idea 
 exercises an indefinable attraction for me. You 
 will, perhaps, reply, it is easy to say it ; but the 
 thing is to make people believe you ! And, then, I 
 don't want any second-hand, spurious sensations ; 
 I want the knowledge that leaves a trace that 
 leaves strange scars and stains and reveries behind 
 it! But I am afraid I shock you, perhaps even 
 frighten you. 
 
 If you repeat my remarks to any of the West 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 225 
 
 Cedar Street circle, be sure you tone them down as 
 your discretion will suggest. For yourself, you will 
 know that I have always had an intense desire to 
 see something of real French life. You are 
 acquainted with my great sympathy with the 
 French; with my natural tendency to enter into 
 the French way of looking at life. I sympathise 
 with the artistic temperament ; I remember you 
 used sometimes to hint to me that you thought my 
 own temperament too artistic. I don't think that 
 in Boston there is any real sympathy with the 
 artistic temperament ; we tend to make everything 
 a matter of right and wrong. And in Boston one 
 can't live on ne pent pas vivre, as they say here. 
 I don't mean one can't reside for a great many 
 people manage that; but one can't live, aesthetically 
 I may almost venture to say, sensuously. This 
 is why I have always been so much drawn to the 
 French, who are so aesthetic, so sensuous. I am so 
 sorry that Theophile Gautier has passed away ; I 
 should have liked so much to go and see him, and 
 tell him all that I owe him. He was living when I 
 was here before ; but, you know, at that time I was 
 travelling with the Johnsons, who are not aesthetic, 
 
 VOL. II. Q 
 
<226 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 and who used to make me feel rather ashamed of my 
 artistic temperament. If I had gone to see the great 
 apostle of beauty, I should have had to go clan- 
 destinely en cachette, as they say here ; and that is 
 not my nature; I like to do everything frankly, 
 freely, nawement, au grand jour. That is the great 
 thing to be free, to be frank, to be naif. Doesn't 
 Matthew Arnold say that somewhere or is it 
 Swinburne, or Pater ? 
 
 When I was with the Johnsons everything was 
 superficial; and, as regards life, everything was 
 brought down to the question of right and wrong. 
 They were too didactic; art should never be didactic; 
 and what is life but an art ? Pater has said that 
 so well, somewhere. "With the Johnsons I am 
 afraid I lost many opportunities ; the tone was gray 
 and cottony, I might almost say woolly. But now, 
 as I tell you, I have determined to take right hold 
 for myself; to look right into European life, and 
 judge it without Johnsonian prejudices. I have 
 taken up, my residence in a French family, in a real 
 Parisian house. You see I have the courage of my 
 opinions ; I don't shrink from carrying out my 
 theory that the great thing is to live. 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 227 
 
 You know I have always been intensely inter- 
 ested in Balzac, who never shrank from the reality, 
 and whose almost lurid pictures of Parisian life have 
 often haunted me in my wanderings through the old 
 wicked-looking streets on the other side of the river. 
 I am only sorry that my new friends my French 
 family do not live in the old city au cceur 
 du meux Paris, as they say here. They live 
 only in the Boulevard Haussman, which is less 
 picturesque ; but in spite of this they have a 
 great deal of the Balzac tone. Madame de Mai- 
 sonrouge belongs to one of the oldest and proudest 
 families in France ; but she has had reverses which 
 have compelled her to open an establishment in 
 which a limited number of travellers, who are weary 
 of the beaten track, who have the sense of local 
 colour she explains it herself, she expresses it so 
 well in short, to open a sort of boarding-house. I 
 don't see why I should not, after all, use that -ex- 
 pression, for it is the correlative of the term pension 
 bourgeoise, employed by Balzac in the Pere Goriot. 
 Do you remember the pension bourgeoise of Madame 
 Vauquer ne'e de Conflans? But this establishment is 
 not at all like that : and indeed it is not at all bourgeois; 
 
228 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 there is something distinguished, something aristo- 
 cratic, about it. The Pension Vauquer was dark, 
 brown, sordid, graisseuse ; but this is in quite a dif- 
 ferent tone, with high, clear, lightly-draped windows, 
 tender, subtle, almost morbid, colours, and furniture 
 in elegant, studied, reed-like lines. Madame de 
 Maisonrouge reminds me of Madame Hulot da 
 you remember "la belle Madame Hulot?" in 
 Les Parents Pauvres. She has a great charm; a 
 little artificial, a little fatigued, with a little sug- 
 gestion of hidden things in her life ; but I have 
 always been sensitive to the charm of fatigue, of 
 duplicity. 
 
 I am rather disappointed, I confess, in the society 
 I find here ; it is not so local, so characteristic, as I 
 could have desired. Indeed, to tell the truth, it is 
 not local at all ; but, on the other hand, it is cos- 
 mopolitan, and there is a great advantage in that. 
 We are French, we are English, we are American, 
 we are German; and, I believe, there are some 
 Eussians and Hungarians expected. I am much 
 interested in the study of national types ; in com- 
 paring, contrasting, seizing the strong points, the 
 weak points, the point of view of each. It is inte- 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 229 
 
 resting to shift one's point of view to enter into 
 strange, exotic ways of looking at life. 
 
 The American types here are not, I am sorry to 
 say, so interesting as they might be, and, excepting 
 myself, are exclusively feminine. We are thin, my 
 dear Harvard ; we are pale, we are sharp. There is 
 something meagre about us ; our line is wanting in 
 roundness, our composition in richness. We lack 
 temperament ; we don't know how to live ; nous ne 
 savons pas vivre, as they say here. The American 
 temperament is represented (putting myself aside, 
 and I often think that my temperament is not at all 
 American) by a young girl and her mother, and 
 another young girl without her mother without 
 her mother or any attendant or appendage what- 
 ever. These young girls are rather curious types ; 
 they have a certain interest, they have a certain 
 grace, but they are disappointing too ; they don't go 
 far ; they don't keep all they promise ; they don't 
 satisfy the imagination. They are cold, slim, sex- 
 less ; the physique is not generous, not abundant ; 
 it is only the drapery, the skirts and furbelows 
 (that is, I mean in the young lady who has her 
 mother) that are abundant. They are very different : 
 
230 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 one of them all elegance, all expensiveness, with an 
 air of high fashion, from New York; the other a 
 plain, pure, clear -eyed, straight -waisted, straight- 
 stepping maiden from the heart of New England. 
 And yet they are very much alike too more alike 
 than they would care to think themselves ; for they 
 eye each other with cold, mistrustful, deprecating 
 looks. They are both specimens of the emancipated 
 young American girl practical, positive, passionless, 
 subtle, and knowing, as you please, either too much 
 or too little. And yet, as I say, they have a certain 
 stamp, a certain grace ; I like to talk with them, to 
 study them. 
 
 The fair New Yorker is, sometimes, very amusing ; 
 she asks me if every one in Boston talks like me 
 if every one is as " intellectual " as your poor cor- 
 respondent. She is for ever throwing Boston up at 
 me ; I can't get rid of Boston. The other one rubs 
 it into me too ; but in a different way ; she seems 
 to feel about it as a good Mahommedan feels toward 
 Mecca, and regards it as a kind of focus of light for 
 the whole human race. Poor little Boston, what 
 nonsense is talked in thy name ! But this New 
 England maiden is, in her way, a strange type : she 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 231 
 
 is travelling all over Europe alone " to see it," she 
 says, "for herself." For herself! What can that 
 stiff, slim self of hers do with such sights, such 
 visions ! She looks at everything, goes everywhere, 
 passes her way, with her clear, quiet eyes wide open ; 
 skirting the edge of obscene abysses without sus- 
 pecting them; pushing through brambles without 
 tearing her robe ; exciting, without knowing it, the 
 most injurious suspicions ; and always holding her 
 course, passionless, stainless, fearless, charmless ! It 
 is a little figure in which, after all, if you can get 
 the right point of view, there is something rather 
 striking. 
 
 By way of contrast, there is a lovely English 
 girl, with eyes as shy as violets, and a voice as 
 sweet ! She has a sweet Gainsborough head, and 
 a great Gainsborough hat, with a mighty plume in 
 front of it, which makes a shadow over her quiet 
 English eyes. Then she has a sage-green robe, 
 " mystic, wonderful," all embroidered with subtle 
 devices and flowers, and birds of tender tint ; very 
 straight and tight in front, and adorned behind, along 
 the spine, with large, strange, iridescent buttons. 
 The revival of taste, of the sense of beauty, in 
 
232 A BUNDLE OF LETTEES. 
 
 England, interests me deeply ; what is there in a 
 simple row of spinal buttons to make one dream 
 to donnor h rfoer, as they say here ? I think that a 
 great aesthetic renascence is at hand, and that a great 
 light will be kindled in England, for all the world to 
 see. There are spirits there that I should like to com- 
 mune with ; I think they would understand me. 
 
 This gracious English maiden, with her clinging 
 robes, her amulets and girdles, with something 
 quaint and angular in her step, her carriage some- 
 thing mediaeval and Gothic, in the details of her 
 person and dress, this lovely Evelyn Vane (isn't it 
 a beautiful name ?) is deeply, delightfully pictur- 
 esque. She is much a woman elk est lien femme, 
 as they say here; simpler, softer, rounder, richer 
 than the young girls I spoke of just now. Not 
 much talk a great, sweet silence. Then the violet 
 eye the very eye itself seems to blush ; the great 
 shadowy hat, making the brow so quiet ; the strange, 
 clinging, clutching, pictured raiment ! As I say, it 
 is a very gracious, tender type. She has her 
 brother with her, who is a beautiful, fair-haired, 
 gray-eyed young Englishman. He is purely object- 
 ive ; and he, too, is very plastic. 
 
V. 
 
 From MIRANDA HOPE to her MOTHER. 
 
 September 26th. 
 
 You must not be frightened at not hearing from 
 me oftener ; it is not because I am in any trouble, 
 but because I am getting on so well. If I were 
 in any trouble I don't think I should write to you ; 
 I should just keep quiet and see it through myself. 
 But that is not the case at present ; and, if I don't 
 write to you, it is because I am so deeply interested 
 over here that I don't seem to find time. It was a 
 real providence that brought me to this house, 
 where, in spite of all obstacles, I am able to do 
 much good work. I wonder how I find the time 
 for all I do ; but when I think that I have only got 
 a year in Europe, I feel as if I wouldn't sacrifice a 
 single hour. 
 
 The obstacles I refer to are the disadvantages I 
 
234 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 have in learning French, there being so many per- 
 sons around me speaking English, and that, as you 
 may say, in the very bosom of a French family. 
 It seems as if you heard English everywhere ; but I 
 certainly didn't expect to find it in a place like 
 this. I am not discouraged, however, and I talk 
 French all I can, even with the other English 
 boarders. Then I have a lesson every day from 
 Miss Maisonrouge (the elder daughter of the lady of 
 the house), and French conversation every evening 
 in the salon, from eight to eleven, with Madame 
 herself, and some friends of hers that often come in. 
 Her cousin, Mr. Verdier, a young French gentle- 
 man, is fortunately staying with her, and I make a 
 point of talking with him as much as possible. I 
 have extra private lessons from him, and I often go 
 out to walk with him. Some night, soon, he is to 
 accompany me to the opera. We have also a most 
 interesting plan of visiting all the galleries in Paris 
 together. Like most of the French, he converses 
 with great fluency, and I feel as if I should really 
 gain from him. He is remarkably handsome, and 
 extremely polite paying a great many compli- 
 ments, which, I am afraid, are not always sincere. 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 235 
 
 When I return to Bangor I will tell you some of 
 the things he has said to me. I think you will 
 consider them extremely curious, and very beautiful 
 in their way. 
 
 The conversation in the parlour (from eight to 
 eleven) is often remarkably brilliant, and I often 
 wish that you, or some of the Bangor folks, could 
 be there to enjoy it. Even though you couldn't 
 understand it I think you would like to hear the 
 way they go on ; they seem to express so much. I 
 sometimes think that at Bangor they don't express 
 enough (but it seems as if over there, there was less 
 to express). It seems as if, at Bangor, there were 
 things that folks never tried to say; but here, I 
 have learned from studying French that you have 
 no idea what you can say, before you try. At 
 Bangor they seem to give it up beforehand ; they 
 don't make any effort. (I don't say this in the 
 least for William Platt, in particular) 
 
 I am sure I don't know what they will think of 
 me when I get back. It seems as if, over here, I 
 had learned to come out with everything. I sup- 
 pose they will think I am not sincere ; but isn't it 
 more sincere to come out with things than to con- 
 
236 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 ceal them ? I have become very good friends with 
 every one in the house that is (you see, I am 
 sincere), with almost every one. It is the most 
 interesting circle I ever was in. There's a girl 
 here, an American, that I don't like so much as the 
 rest ; but that is only because she won't let me. I 
 should like to like her, ever so much, because she 
 is most lovely and most attractive ; but she doesn't 
 seem to want to know me or to like me. She 
 comes from New York, and she is remarkably 
 pretty, with beautiful eyes and the most delicate 
 features ; she is also remarkably elegant in this 
 respect would bear comparison with any one I have 
 seen over here. But it seems as if she didn't want 
 to recognise me, or associate with me; as if she 
 wanted to make a difference between us. It is like 
 people they call "haughty" in books. I have never 
 seen any one like that before any one that wanted 
 to make a difference ; and at first I was right down 
 interested, she seemed to me so like a proud young 
 lady in a novel. I kept saying to myself all day, 
 " haughty, haughty," and I wished she would keep 
 on so. But she did keep on; she kept on too long; 
 and then I began to feel hurt. I couldn't think 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 237 
 
 what I have done, and I can't think yet. It's as if 
 she had got some idea about me, or had heard some 
 one say something. If some girls should behave 
 like that I shouldn't make any account of it; but 
 this one is so refined, and looks as if she might be 
 so interesting if I once got to know her, that I 
 think about it a good deal. I am bound to find 
 out what her reason is for of course she has got 
 some reason; I am right down curious to know. 
 
 I went up to her to ask her the day before yes- 
 day ; I thought that was the best way. I told her 
 I wanted to know her better, and would like to 
 come and see her in her room they tell me she 
 has got a lovely room and that if she had heard 
 anything against me, perhaps she would tell me 
 when I came. But she was more distant than 
 ever, and she just turned it off; said that she had 
 never heard me mentioned, and that her room was 
 too small to receive visitors. I suppose she spoke 
 the truth, but I am sure she has got some reason, 
 alt the same. She has got some idea, and I am 
 bound to find out before I go, if I have to ask 
 everybody in the house. I am right down curious. 
 I wonder if she doesn't think me refined or if she 
 
238 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 had ever heard anything against Bangor ? I can't 
 think it is that. Don't you remember when Clara 
 Barnard went to visit in New York, three years ago, 
 how much attention she received ? And you know 
 Clara is Bangor, to the soles of her shoes. Ask 
 William Platt so long as he isn't a native if he 
 doesn't consider Clara Barnard refined. 
 
 Apropos, as they say here, of refinement, there is 
 another American in the house a gentleman from 
 Boston who is just crowded with it. His name is 
 Mr. Louis Leverett (such a beautiful name, I think), 
 and he is about thirty years old. He is rather 
 small, and he looks pretty sick; he suffers from 
 some affection of the liver. But his conversation 
 is remarkably interesting, and I delight to listen to 
 him he has such beautiful ideas. I feel as if it 
 were hardly right, not being in French ; but, fortu- 
 nately, he uses a great many French expressions. 
 It's in a different style from the conversation of 
 Mr. Verdier not so complimentary, but more intel- 
 lectual. He is intensely fond of pictures, and has 
 given me a great many ideas about them which I 
 should never have gained without him ; I shouldn't 
 have known where to look for such ideas. He 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 239 
 
 thinks everything of pictures ; he thinks we don't 
 make near enough of them. They seem to make a 
 good deal of them here ; but I couldn't help telling 
 him the other day that in Bangor I really don't 
 think we do. 
 
 If I had any money to spend I would buy some 
 and take them back, to hang up. Mr. Leverett says 
 it would do them good not the pictures, but the 
 Bangor folks. He thinks everything of the French, 
 too, and says we don't make nearly enough of them. 
 I couldn't help telling him the other day that at 
 any rate they make enough of themselves. But 
 it is very interesting to hear him go on about the 
 French, and it is so much gain to me, so long as 
 that is what I came for. I talk to him as much as 
 I dare about Boston, but I do feel as if this were 
 right down wrong a stolen pleasure. 
 
 I can get all the Boston culture I want when I 
 go back, if I carry out my plan, my happy vision, 
 of going there to reside. I ought to direct all my 
 efforts to European culture now, and keep Boston to 
 finish off. But it seems as if I couldn't help taking 
 a peep now and then, in advance with a Bos- 
 tonian. I don't know when I may meet one again; 
 
240 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 but if there are many others like Mr. Leverett there, 
 I shall be certain not to want when I carry out my 
 dream. He is just as full of culture as he can live. 
 But it seems strange how many different sorts there 
 are. 
 
 There are two of the English who I suppose are 
 very cultivated too; but it doesn't seem as if I 
 could enter into theirs so easily, though I try all I 
 can. I do love their way of speaking, and some- 
 times I feel almost as if it would be right to give 
 up trying to learn French, and just try to learn to 
 speak our own tongue as these English speak it. It 
 isn't the things they say so much, though these are 
 often rather curious, but it is in the way they pro- 
 nounce, and the sweetness of their voice. It seems 
 as if they must try a good deal to talk like that ; 
 but these English that are here don't seem to try at 
 all, either to speak or do anything else. They are a 
 young lady and her brother. I believe they belong 
 to some noble family. I have had a good deal of 
 intercourse with them, because I have felt more free 
 to talk to them than to the Americans on account 
 of the language. It seems as if in talking with 
 them I was almost learning a new one. 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 241 
 
 I never supposed, when I left Bangor, that I was 
 coming to Europe to learn English ! If I do learn 
 it, I don't think you will understand me when I 
 get back, and I don't think you'll like it much. I 
 should he a good deal criticised if I spoke like that 
 at Bangor. However, I verily believe Bangor is the 
 most critical place on earth; I have seen nothing 
 like it over here. Tell them all I have come to the 
 conclusion that they are a great deal too fastidious. 
 But I was speaking about this English young lady 
 and her brother. I wish I could put them before 
 you. She is lovely to look at; she seems so modest 
 and retiring. In spite of this, however, she dresses 
 in a way that attracts great attention, as I couldn't 
 help noticing when one day I went out to walk with 
 her. She was ever so mucn looked at; but she 
 didn't seem to notice it, until at last I couldn't help 
 calling attention to it. Mr. Leverett thinks every- 
 thing of it ; he calls it the " costume of the future." 
 I should call it rather the costume of the past you 
 know the English have such an attachment to the 
 past. I said this the other day to Madame de 
 Maisonrouge that Miss Yane dressed in the cos- 
 tume of the past. De Van passe*, vous voulez dire ? 
 VOL. n. B 
 
242 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 said Madame, with her little French laugh (you can 
 get William Platt to translate this, he used to tell 
 me he knew so much French). 
 
 You know I told you, in writing some time ago, 
 that I had tried to get some insight into the position 
 of woman in England, and, being here with Miss 
 Vane, it has seemed to me to be a good opportunity 
 to get a little more. I have asked her a great deal 
 about it ; but she doesn't seem able to give me much 
 information. The first time I asked her she told 
 me the position of a lady depended upon the rank 
 of her father, her eldest brother, her husband, etc. 
 She told me her own position was very good, be- 
 cause her father was some relation I forget what 
 to a lord. She thinks everything of this; and 
 that proves to me that the position of woman in her 
 country cannot be satisfactory; because, if it were, 
 it wouldn't depend upon that of your relations, even 
 your nearest. I don't know much about lords, and 
 it does try my patience (though she is just as sweet 
 as she can live) to hear her talk as if it were a 
 matter of course that I should. 
 
 I feel as if it were right to ask her as often as I 
 can if she doesn't consider every one equal ; but she 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 243 
 
 always says she doesn't, and she -confesses that she 
 doesn't think she is equal to "Lady Something-or- 
 other," who is the wile of that relation of her father. 
 I try and persuade her all I can that she is ; but it 
 seems as if she didn't want to be persuaded; and 
 when I ask her if Lady So-and-so is of the same 
 opinion (that Miss Vane isn't her equal), she looks 
 so soft and pretty with her eyes, and says, "Of 
 course she is ! " When I tell her that this is right 
 down bad for Lady So-and-so, it seems as if she 
 wouldn't believe me, and the only answer she will 
 make is that Lady So-and-so is "extremely nice." 
 I don't believe she is nice at all ; if she were nice, 
 she wouldn't have such ideas as that. I tell Miss 
 Vane that at Bangor we think such ideas vulgar ; 
 but then she looks as though she had never heard of 
 Bangor. I often want to shake her, though she is 
 so sweet. If she isn't angry with the people who 
 make her feel that way, I am angry for her. I am 
 angry with her brother, too, for she is evidently very 
 much afraid of him, and this gives me some further 
 insight into the subject. She thinks everything of 
 her brother, and thinks it natural that she should be 
 afraid of him, not only physically (for this is natural 
 
244 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 as he is enormously tall and strong, and has very big 
 fists), but morally and intellectually. She seems 
 unable, however, to take in any argument, and she 
 makes me realise what I have often heard that if 
 you are timid nothing will reason you out of it. 
 
 Mr. Vane, also (the brother), seems to have the 
 same prejudices, and when I tell him, as I often 
 think it right to do, that his sister is not his sub- 
 ordinate, even if she does think so, but his equal, and, 
 perhaps in some respects his superior, and that if my 
 brother, in Bangor, were to treat me as he treats 
 this poor young girl, who has not spirit enough to 
 see the question in its true light, there would be an 
 indignation-meeting of the citizens, to protest against 
 such an outrage to the sanctity of womanhood 
 when I tell him all this, at breakfast or dinner, he 
 bursts out laughing so loud that all the plates clatter 
 on the table. 
 
 But at such a time as this there is always one 
 person who seems interested in what I say a 
 German gentleman, a professor, who sits next to me 
 at dinner, and whom I must tell you more about 
 another time. He is very learned, and has a great 
 desire for information ; he appreciates a great many 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 245 
 
 of my remarks, and, after dinner, in the salon, he 
 often comes to me to ask me questions about them. 
 I have to think a little, sometimes, to know what I 
 did say, or what I do think. He takes you right up 
 where you left off, and he is almost as fond of 
 discussing things as William Platt is. He is 
 splendidly educated, in the German style, and he 
 told me the other day that he was an " intellectual 
 broom." Well, if he is, he sweeps clean; I told 
 him that. After he has been talking to me I feel 
 as if I hadn't got a speck of dust left in my mind 
 anywhere. It's a most delightful feeling. He says 
 he's an observer; and I am sure there is plenty 
 over here to observe. But I have told you enough 
 for to-day. I don't know how much longer I shall 
 stay here ; I am getting on so fast that it sometimes 
 seems as if I shouldn't need all the time I have laid 
 out. I suppose your cold weather has promptly 
 begun, as usual ; it sometimes makes me envy you. 
 The fall weather here is very dull and damp, and I 
 feel very much as if I should like to be braced up. 
 
VI. 
 
 From Miss EVELYN VANE, in Paris, to the Lady 
 AUGUSTA FLEMING, at Brighton. 
 
 PARIS, September 30th. 
 
 DEAR LADY AUGUSTA 
 
 I AM afraid I shall not be able to come to you on 
 January 7th, as you kindly proposed at Homburg. 
 I am so very, very sorry ; it is a great disappoint- 
 ment to me. But I have just heard that it has 
 been settled that mamma and the children are 
 coming abroad for a part of the winter, and mamma 
 wishes me to go with them to Hyeres, where 
 Georgina has been ordered for her lungs. She has 
 not been at all well these three months, and now 
 that the damp weather has begun she is very poorly 
 indeed ; so that last week papa decided to have a 
 consultation, and he and mamma went with her up 
 to town and saw some three or four doctors. They 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 247 
 
 all of them ordered the south of France, but they 
 didn't agree about the place ; so that mamma her- 
 self decided for Hyeres, because it is the most 
 economical. I believe it is very dull, but I hope 
 it will do Georgina good. I am afraid, however, 
 that nothing will do her good until she consents to 
 take more care of herself ; I am afraid she is very 
 wild and wilful, and mamma tells me that all this 
 month it has taken papa's positive orders to make 
 her stop in -doors. She is very cross (mamma 
 writes me) about coming abroad, and doesn't seem 
 at all to mind the expense that papa has been put 
 to, talks very ill-naturedly about losing the hunt- 
 ing, etc. She expected to begin to hunt in 
 December, and wants to know whether anybody 
 keeps hounds at Hyeres. Fancy a girl wanting to 
 follow the hounds when her lungs are so bad ! 
 But I dare say that when she gets there she 
 will be glad enough to keep quiet, as they say that 
 the heat is intense. It may cure Georgina, but I 
 am sure it will make the rest of us very ill. 
 
 Mamma, however, is only going to bring Mary 
 and Gus and Fred and Adelaide abroad with her; 
 the others will remain at Kingscote until February 
 
248 A BUNDLE OF [LETTERS. 
 
 (about the 3d), when they will go to Eastbourne for 
 a month with Miss Turnover, the new governess, 
 who has turned out such a very nice person. She 
 is going to take Miss Travers, who has been with us 
 so long, but who is only qualified for the younger 
 children, to Hyeres, and I believe some of the 
 Kingscote servants. She has perfect confidence in 
 Miss T. ; it is only a pity she has such an odd 
 name. Mamma thought of asking her if she would 
 mind taking another when she came; but papa 
 thought she might object. Lady Battledown makes 
 all her governesses take the same name ; she gives 
 5 more a year for the purpose. I forget what it is 
 she calls them ; I think it's Johnson (which to 
 me always suggests a lady's maid). Governesses 
 shouldn't have too pretty a name ; they shouldn't 
 have a nicer name than the family. 
 
 I suppose you heard from the Desmonds that I 
 did not go back to England with them. When it 
 began to be talked about that Georgina should be 
 taken abroad, mamma wrote to me that I had better 
 stop in Paris for a month with Harold, so that she 
 could pick me up on their way to Hyeres. It saves 
 the expense of my journey to Kingscote and back, 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 249 
 
 and gives me the opportunity to " finish " a little, 
 in French. 
 
 You know Harold came here six weeks ago, to 
 get up his Trench for those dreadful examinations 
 that he has to pass so soon. He came to live with 
 some French people that take in young men (and 
 others) for this purpose; it's a kind of coaching 
 place, only kept by women. Mamma had heard it 
 was very nice; so she wrote to me that I was to 
 come and stop here with Harold. The Desmonds 
 brought me and made the arrangement, or the 
 bargain, or whatever you call it. Poor Harold was 
 naturally not at all pleased; but he has been very 
 kind, and has treated me like an angel. He is 
 getting on beautifully with his French ; for though 
 I don't think the place is so good as papa supposed, 
 yet Harold is so immensely clever that he can 
 scarcely help learning. I am afraid I learn much 
 less, but, fortunately, I have not to pass an ex- 
 amination except if mamma takes it into her head 
 to examine me. But she will have so much to 
 think of with Georgina that I hope this won't occur 
 to her. If it does, I shall be, as Harold says, in a 
 dreadful funk. 
 
250 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 This is not such a nice place for a girl as for a 
 young man, and the Desmonds thought it exceedingly 
 odd that mamma should wish me to come here. As 
 Mrs. Desmond said, it is because she is so very 
 unconventional. But you know Paris is so very 
 amusing, and if only Harold remains good-natured 
 about it, I shall be content to wait for the caravan 
 (that's what he calls mamma and the children). 
 The person who keeps the establishment, or what- 
 ever they call it, is rather odd, and exceedingly 
 foreign; but she is wonderfully civil, and is per- 
 petually sending to my door to see if I want 
 anything. The servants are not at all like English 
 servants, and come bursting in, the footman (they 
 have only one) and the maids alike, at all sorts of 
 hours, in the most sudden way. Then when one 
 rings, it is half an hour before they come. All this 
 is very uncomfortable, and I daresay it will be 
 worse at Hyeres. There, however, fortunately, we 
 shall have our own people. 
 
 There are some very odd Americans here, who 
 keep throwing Harold into fits of laughter. One 
 is a dreadful little man who is always sitting over 
 the fire, and talking about the colour of the sky. 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 251 
 
 I don't believe he ever saw the sky except through 
 the window-pane. The other day he took hold of 
 my frock (that green one you thought so nice at 
 Homburg) and told me that it reminded him of the 
 texture of the Devonshire) turf. And then he 
 talked for half an hour about the Devonshire turf, 
 which I thought such a very extraordinary subject. 
 Harold says he is mad. It is very strange to be 
 living in this way, with people one doesn't know. 
 I mean that one doesn't know as one knows them 
 in England. 
 
 The other Americans (beside the madman) are 
 two girls, about my own age, one of whom is rather 
 nice. She has a mother ; but the mother is always 
 sitting in her bed-room, which seems so very odd. 
 I should like mamma to ask them to Kingscote, but 
 I am afraid mamma wouldn't like the mother, who 
 is rather vulgar. The other girl is rather vulgar 
 too, and is travelling about quite alone. I think 
 she is a kind of schoolmistress ; but the other girl 
 (I mean the nicer one, with the mother) tells me 
 she is more respectable than she seems. She has, 
 however, the most extraordinary opinions wishes 
 to do away with the aristocracy, thinks it wrong 
 
252 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 that Arthur should have Kingscote when papa dies, 
 etc. I don't see what it signifies to her that poor 
 Arthur should come into the property, which will be 
 so delightful except for papa dying. But Harold 
 says she is mad. He chaffs her tremendously about 
 her radicalism, and he is so immensely clever that 
 she can't answer him, though she is rather clever, 
 too. 
 
 There is also a Frenchman, a nephew, or cousin, 
 or something, of the person of the house, who is 
 extremely nasty ; and a German professor, or doc- 
 tor, who eats with his knife and is a great bore. I 
 am so very sorry about giving up my visit. I am 
 afraid you will never ask me again. 
 
VII. 
 
 From LrioN VERDIER in Paris, to PROSPER GOBAIN, 
 at Lille. 
 
 September 28th. 
 
 MY DEAR PROSPER 
 
 IT is a long time since I have given you of my 
 news, and I don't know what puts it into my 
 head to-night to recall myself to your affectionate 
 memory. I suppose it is that when we are happy 
 the mind reverts instinctively to those with whom 
 formerly we shared our exaltations and depressions, 
 and je fen ai trop dit, dans le Ion temps, mon gros 
 Prosper, and you always listened to me too imper- 
 turbably, with your pipe in your mouth, your waist- 
 coat unbuttoned, for me not to feel that I can count 
 upon your sympathy to-day. Nous en sommes nous 
 flanqu6es, des confidences in those happy days when 
 my first thought in seeing an adventure poindre a 
 I'horizon was of the pleasure I should have in re- 
 
254 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 lating it to the great Prosper. As I tell thee, I am 
 happy ; decidedly, I am happy, and from this affirm- 
 ation I fancy you can construct the rest. Shall I 
 help thee a little ? Take three adorable girls . . . 
 three, my good Prosper the mystic number 
 neither more nor less. Take them and place thy 
 insatiable little Le"on in the midst of them ! Is the 
 situation sufficiently indicated, and do you appre- 
 hend the motives of my felicity ? 
 
 You expected, perhaps, I was going to tell you 
 that I had made my fortune, or that the Uncle 
 Blondeau had at last decided to return into the 
 breast of nature, after having constituted me his 
 universal legatee. But I needn't remind you that 
 women are always for something in the happiness of 
 him who writes to thee for something in his hap- 
 piness, and for a good deal more in his misery. 
 But don't let me talk of misery now ; time enough 
 when it comes ; ces demoiselles have gone to join 
 the serried ranks of their amiable predecessors. 
 Excuse me I comprehend your impatience. I 
 will tell you of whom ces demoiselles consist. 
 
 You have heard me speak of my cousine de Mai- 
 sonrouge, that grande belle femme, who, after having 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 255 
 
 married, en secondes noces there had been, to tell 
 the truth, some irregularity about her first union 
 a venerable relic of the old noblesse of Poitou, was 
 left, by the death of her husband, complicated by 
 the indulgence of expensive tastes on an income of 
 17,000 francs, on the pavement of Paris, with two 
 little demons of daughters to bring up in the path 
 of virtue. She managed to bring them up ; my 
 little cousins are rigidly virtuous. If you ask me 
 how she managed it, I can't tell you; it's no busi- 
 ness of mine, and, & fortiori, none of yours. She 
 is now fifty years old (she confesses to thirty-seven), 
 and her daughters, whom she has never been able 
 to marry, are respectively twenty-seven and twenty- 
 three (they confess to twenty and to seventeen). 
 Three years ago she had the thrice-blessed idea of open- 
 ing a sort of pension for the entertainment and instruc- 
 tion of the blundering barbarians who come to Paris 
 in the hope of picking up a few stray particles of 
 the language of Voltaire or of Zola. The idea lui 
 a, porte loriheur ; the shop does a very good busi- 
 ness. Until within a few months ago it was carried 
 on by my cousins alone ; but lately the need of a 
 few extensions and embellishments has caused itself 
 
256 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 to be felt. My cousin has undertaken them, regard- 
 less of expense ; she has asked me to come and stay 
 with her board and lodging gratis and keep an 
 eye on the grammatical eccentricities of her pension- 
 naires. I am the extension, my good Prosper ; I 
 am the embellishment ! I live for nothing, and I 
 straighten up the accent of the prettiest English 
 lips. The English lips are not all pretty, heaven 
 knows, but enough of them are so to make it a gain- 
 ing bargain for me. 
 
 Just now, as I told you, I am in daily conversa- 
 tion with three separate pairs. The owner of one 
 of them has private lessons ; she pays extra. My 
 cousin doesn't give me a sou of the money ; but I 
 make bold, nevertheless, to say that my trouble is 
 remunerated. But I am well, very well, with the 
 proprietors of the two other pairs. One of them is 
 a little Anglaise, of about twenty a little figure de 
 keepsake ; the most adorable miss that you ever, or 
 at least that I ever, beheld. She is decorated all 
 over with beads and bracelets and embroidered 
 dandelions ; but her principal decoration consists of 
 the softest little gray eyes in the world, which rest 
 upon you with a profundity of confidence a con- 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 257 
 
 fidence that I really feel some compunction in 
 betraying. She has a tint as white as this sheet of 
 paper, except just in the middle of each cheek, 
 where it passes into the purest and most transparent, 
 most liquid, carmine. Occasionally this rosy fluid 
 overflows into the rest of her face by which I 
 mean that she blushes as softly as the mark of 
 your breath on the window-pane. 
 
 Like every Anglaise, she is rather pinched and 
 prim in public ; but it is very easy to see that when 
 no one is looking elle ne demande qu'd, se laisser oiler ! 
 Whenever she wants it I am always there, and I 
 have given her to understand that she can count 
 upon me. I have every reason to believe that she 
 appreciates the assurance, though I am bound in 
 honesty to confess that with her the situation is a 
 little less advanced than with the others. Que voulez- 
 vom ? The English are heavy, and the Anglaises 
 move slowly, that's all. The movement, however, 
 is perceptible, and once this fact is established I 
 can let the pottage simmer. I can give her time to 
 arrive, for I am over-well occupied with her con- 
 current es. Celles-ci don't keep me waiting, par 
 cxemple ! 
 
 VOL. n. s 
 
258 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 These young ladies are Americans, and you know 
 that it is the national character to move fast. " All 
 right go ahead !" (I am learning a great deal of 
 English, or, rather, a great deal of American.) They 
 go ahead at a rate that sometimes makes it difficult 
 for me to keep up. One of them is prettier than 
 the other ; but this latter (the one that takes the 
 private lessons) is really une file prodigieuse. Ah, 
 par exemple, die Grille ses vaisseux celle-la ! She 
 threw herself into my arms the very first day, and 
 I almost owed her a grudge for having deprived me 
 of that pleasure of gradation, of carrying the defences, 
 one by one, which is almost as great as that of 
 entering the place. 
 
 Would you believe that at the end of exactly 
 twelve minutes she gave me a rendezvous ? It is 
 true it was in the Galerie d'Apollon, at the Louvre ; 
 but that was respectable for a beginning, and since 
 then we have had them by the dozen ; I have ceased 
 to keep the account. Non, c'est une fille qui me 
 ddpasse. 
 
 The little one (she has a mother somewhere, out 
 of sight, shut up in a closet or a trunk) is a good 
 deal prettier, and, perhaps, on that account die y met 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 259 
 
 plus de famous. She doesn't knock about Paris with 
 me by the hour ; she contents herself with long 
 interviews in the petit salon, with the curtains half- 
 drawn, beginning at about three o'clock, when every 
 one is in la promenade. She is admirable, this little 
 one ; a little too thin, the bones rather accentuated, 
 but the detail, on the whole, most satisfactory. 
 And you can say anything to her. She takes the 
 trouble to appear not to understand, but her conduct, 
 half an hour afterwards, reassures you completely 
 oh, completely ! 
 
 However, it is the tall one, the one of the private 
 lessons, that is the most remarkable. These private 
 lessons, my good Prosper, are the most brilliant 
 invention of the age, and a real stroke of genius on 
 the part of Miss Miranda ! They also take place in 
 the petit salon, but with the doors tightly closed, 
 and with explicit directions to every one in the 
 house that we are not to be disturbed. And we are 
 not, my good Prosper ; we are not ! Not a sound, 
 not a shadow, interrupts our felicity. My cousine is 
 really admirable; the shop deserves to succeed. 
 Miss Miranda is tall and rather flat ; she is too 
 pale ; she hasn't the adorable rougeurs of the little 
 
260 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 Anglaise. , But she has bright, keen, inquisitive eyes, 
 superb teeth, a nose modelled by a sculptor, and a 
 way of holding up her head and looking every one 
 in the face, which is the most finished piece of 
 impertinence I ever beheld. She is making the 
 tour du monde, entirely alone, without even a 
 soubre'tte to carry the ensign, for the purpose* of 
 seeing for herself h guoi s'en tenir sur les hommes et 
 les choses on les hommes particularly. Dis done, 
 Prosper, it must be a drdle de pays over there, 
 where young persons animated by this ardent curi- 
 osity are manufactured! If we should turn the 
 tables, some day, thou and I, and go over and see 
 it for ourselves. It is as well that we should go 
 and find them chez elles, as that they should come 
 out here after us. Dis done, mon gros Prosper. . . . 
 
VIII. 
 
 From Dr. KUDOLF STAUB, in Paris, to Dr. JULIUS 
 HIRSCH, at Gottingen. 
 
 MY DEAR BROTHER IN SCIENCE 
 1 RESUME my hasty notes, of which I sent you the 
 first instalment some weeks ago. I mentioned then 
 that I intended to leave my hotel, not finding it 
 sufficiently local and national. It was kept by a 
 Pomeranian, and the waiters, without exception, 
 were from the Fatherland. I fancied myself at 
 Berlin, Unter den Linden, and I reflected that, 
 having taken the serious step of visiting the head- 
 quarters of the Gallic genius, I should try and pro- 
 ject myself, as much as possible, into the circum- 
 stances which are in part the consequence and in 
 part the cause of its irrepressible activity. It 
 seemed to me that there could be no well-grounded 
 knowledge without this preliminary operation of 
 placing myself in relations, as slightly as possible 
 
262 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 modified by elements proceeding from a different 
 combination of causes, with the spontaneous home- 
 life of the country. 
 
 I accordingly engaged a room in the house of a 
 lady of pure French extraction and education, who 
 supplements the shortcomings of an income insuffi- 
 cient to the ever-growing demands of the Parisian 
 system of sense-gratification, by providing food and 
 lodging for a limited number of distinguished stran- 
 gers. I should have preferred to have my room 
 alone in the house, and to take my meals in a 
 brewery, of very good appearance, which I speedily 
 discovered in the same street ; but this arrangement, 
 though very lucidly proposed by myself, was not 
 acceptable to the mistress of the establishment (a 
 woman with a mathematical head), and I have con- 
 soled myself for the extra expense by fixing my 
 thoughts upon the opportunity that conformity to 
 the customs of the house gives me of studying the 
 table-manners of my companions, and of observing 
 the French nature at a peculiarly physiological 
 moment, the moment when the satisfaction of the 
 taste, which is the governing quality in its composition, 
 produces a kind of exhalation, an intellectual tran- 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 263 
 
 spiration, which, though light and perhaps invisible 
 to a superficial spectator, is nevertheless appreciable 
 by a properly adjusted instrument. 
 
 I have adjusted my instrument very satisfactorily 
 (I mean the one I carry in my good, square German 
 head), and I am not afraid of losing a single drop of 
 this valuable fluid, as it condenses itself upon the 
 plate of my observation. A prepared surface is 
 what I need, and I have prepared my surface. 
 
 Unfortunately here, also, I find the individual 
 native in the minority. There are only four French 
 persons in the house the individuals concerned in 
 its management, three of whom are women, and one 
 a man. This preponderance of the feminine element 
 is, however, in itself characteristic, as I need not 
 remind you what an abnormally-developed part this 
 sex has played in French history. The remaining 
 figure is apparently that of a man, but I hesitate to 
 classify him so superficially. He appears to me 
 less human than simian, and whenever I hear him 
 talk I seem to myself to have paused in the street 
 to listen to the shrill clatter of a hand-organ, to 
 which the gambols of a hairy homunculus form an 
 accompaniment. 
 
264 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 I mentioned to you before that my expectation 
 of rough usage, in consequence of my German 
 nationality, had proved completely unfounded. No 
 one seems to know or to care what my nationality 
 is, and I am treated, on the contrary, with the civil- 
 ity which is the portion of every traveller who pays 
 the bill without scanning the items too narrowly. 
 This, I confess, has been something of a surprise to 
 me, and I have not yet made up my mind as to 
 the fundamental cause of the anomaly. My deter- 
 mination to take up my abode in a French interior 
 was largely dictated by the supposition that I 
 should be substantially disagreeable to its inmates. 
 I wished to observe the different forms taken by 
 the irritation that I should naturally produce ; for 
 it is under the influence of irritation that the French 
 character most completely expresses itself. My 
 presence, however, does not appear to operate as a 
 stimulus, and in this respect I am materially disap- 
 pointed. They treat me as they treat every one 
 else ; whereas, in order to be treated differently, I 
 was resigned in advance to be treated worse. I 
 have not, as I say, fully explained to myself this 
 logical contradiction ; but this is the explanation to 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 265 
 
 which I tend. The Trench are so exclusively occu- 
 pied with the idea of themselves, that in spite of the 
 very definite image the German personality pre- 
 sented to them by the war of 18*70, they have at 
 present no distinct apprehension of its existence. 
 They are not very sure that there are any Germans ; 
 they have already forgotten the convincing proofs 
 of the fact that were presented to them nine years 
 ago. A German was something disagreeable, which 
 they determined to keep out of their conception of 
 things. I therefore think that we are wrong to 
 govern ourselves upon the hypothesis of the revanche; 
 the French nature is too shallow for that large and 
 powerful plant to bloom in it. 
 
 The English-speaking specimens, too, I have not 
 been willing to neglect the opportunity to examine ; 
 and among these I have paid special attention to 
 the American varieties, of which I find here several 
 singular examples. The two most remarkable are 
 a young man who presents all the characteristics 
 of a period of national decadence ; reminding me 
 strongly of some diminutive Hellenised Eoman of 
 the third century. He is an illustration of the 
 period of culture in which the faculty of apprecia- 
 
266 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 tion has obtained such a preponderance over that of 
 production that the latter sinks into a kind of rank 
 sterility, and the mental condition becomes analogous 
 to that of a malarious bog. I learn from him that 
 there is an immense number of Americans exactly 
 resembling him, and that the city of Boston, indeed, 
 is almost exclusively composed of them. (He com- 
 municated this fact very proudly, as if it were 
 greatly to the credit of his native country; little 
 perceiving the truly sinister impression it made 
 upon me.) 
 
 What strikes one in it is that it is a phenomenon 
 to the best of my knowledge and you know what 
 my knowledge is unprecedented and unique in the 
 history of mankind ; the arrival of a nation at an 
 ultimate stage of evolution without having passed 
 through the mediate one ; the passage of the fruit, in 
 other words, from crudity to rottenness, without the 
 interposition of a period of useful (and ornamental) 
 ripeness. With the Americans, indeed, the crudity 
 and the rottenness are identical and simultaneous ; 
 it is impossible to say, as in the conversation of this 
 deplorable young man, which is one and which is 
 the other ; they are inextricably mingled. I prefer 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 267 
 
 the talk of the French homunculus ; it is at least 
 more amusing. 
 
 It is interesting in this manner to perceive, so 
 largely developed, the germs of extinction in the so- 
 called powerful Anglo-Saxon family. I find them 
 in almost as recognisable a form in a young woman 
 from the State of Maine, in the province of New 
 England, with whom I have had a good deal of 
 conversation. She differs somewhat from the young 
 man I just mentioned, in that the faculty of produc- 
 tion, of action, is, in her, less inanimate ; she has 
 more of the freshness and vigour that we suppose 
 to belong to a young civilisation. But unfortu- 
 nately she produces nothing but evil, and her tastes 
 and habits are similarly those of a Koman lady of 
 the lower Empire. She makes no secret of them, 
 
 * 
 
 and has, in fact, elaborated a complete system of 
 licentious behaviour. As the opportunities she finds 
 in her own country do not satisfy her, she has come 
 to Europe " to try " as she says, " for herself." It 
 is the doctrine of universal experience professed with 
 a cynicism that is really most extraordinary, and 
 which, presenting itself in a young woman of con- 
 
368 A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 
 
 siderable education, appears to me to be the judg- 
 ment of a society. 
 
 Another observation which pushes me to the 
 same induction that of the premature vitiation of 
 the American population is the attitude of the 
 Americans whom I have before me with regard to 
 each other. There is another young lady here, who 
 is less abnormally developed than the , one I have 
 just described, but who yet bears the stamp of this 
 peculiar combination of incompleteness and effete- 
 ness. These three persons look with the greatest 
 mistrust and aversion upon each other ; and each 
 has repeatedly taken me apart and assured me, 
 secretly, that he or she only is the real, the genuine, 
 the typical American. A type that has lost itself 
 before it has been fixed what can you look for 
 from this ? 
 
 Add to this that there are two young Englanders 
 in the house, who hate all the Americans in a lump, 
 making between them none of the distinctions and 
 favourable comparisons which they insist upon, and 
 you will, I think, hold me warranted in believing 
 that, between precipitate decay and internecine 
 enmities, the English-speaking family is destined to 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 369 
 
 consume itself, and that with its. decline the pros- 
 pect of general pervasiveness, to which I alluded 
 above, will brighten for the deep-lunged children of 
 the Fatherland ! 
 
IX. 
 
 MIRANDA HOPE to her MOTHER. 
 
 October 
 
 ' DEAR MOTHER 
 
 I AM off in a day or two to visit some new country; 
 I haven't yet decided which. I have satisfied my- 
 self with regard to France, and obtained a good 
 knowledge of the language. I have enjoyed my 
 visit to Madame de Maisonrouge deeply, and feel as 
 if I were leaving a circle of real friends. Every- 
 thing has gone on beautifully up to the end, and 
 every one has been as kind and attentive as if I 
 were their own sister, especially Mr. Verdier, the 
 French gentleman, from whom I have gained more 
 than I ever expected (in six weeks), and with whom 
 I have promised to correspond. So you can imagine 
 me dashing off the most correct French letters; and, 
 if you don't believe it, I will keep the rough draft 
 to show you when I go back. 
 
A BUNDLE OF LETTERS. 371 
 
 The German gentleman is also more interesting, 
 the more you know him ; it seems sometimes as if 
 I could fairly drink in his ideas. I have found out 
 why the young lady from New York doesn't like me ! 
 It is because I said one day at dinner that I admired 
 to go to the Louvre. "Well, when I first came, it 
 seemed as if I did admire everything ! 
 
 Tell William Platt his letter has come. I knew 
 he would have to write, and I was bound I would 
 make him ! I haven't decided what country I will 
 visit yet; it seems as if there were so many to 
 choose from. But I shall take care to pick out a 
 good one, and to meet plenty of fresh experiences. 
 
 Dearest mother, my money holds out, and it is 
 most interesting ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh. 
 
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