is quite white, and her hair
so black and drawn off her forehead, and she has a bristly moustache.
She is also very up right and thin, and walks with an ebony stick, and
her voice is like a peacock's. She looked me through and through, and I
felt all my French getting jumbled, and it came out with such an
English accent; and after we had bowed a good deal, and said heaps of
Ollendorfish kind of sentences, I was given some "sirop" and water, and
conducted to bed by Victorine. She is a big dump with a shiny
complexion, and such a very small mouth, and I am sure I shall hate
her, she isn't a bit good-natured-looking like Jean. The house is
really fine Louis XV., and my bedroom and cabinet de toilette are
delicious, so is my bed; but the attitude of Agnes--such a conscious
pride in the superiority of France--nearly drove me mad.

There isn't a decent dressing-table mirror, only one in an old silver
frame about eight inches square, and that is sitting on the
writing-table--or what would be the writing-table, if there happened to
be any pens and things, which there aren't. All the hanging places open
out of the panels of the wall, there are no wardrobes, only beautiful
marble-topped _bureaux_; but I was so tired.

[Sidenote: _A French Family at Home_]

I left Agnes to settle everything and jumped into bed. This morning I
woke early, and had the loveliest cup of chocolate, but such a silly
bath, and almost cold water. There are no housemaids, and nothing is
done with precise regularity like at home, although they are so rich.
Agnes had to fish for everything of that sort herself, and such a lot
of talking went on in the passage between her and the _valet de
chambre_, before I even got this teeny tiny tray to splash in. However,
I did get dressed at last, and went for a walk in the garden--not a
soul about but a few gardeners. The begonias are magnificent, but there
is no look of park beyond the garden, or nice deer and things that we
would have for such a house in England. It is more like a sort of big
villa.

I saw Jean at last in the distance, going round and round a large pond
on his bicycle. He did look odd! in a thick striped jersey, and the
tightest knickerbockers; almost as low as a "scorcher." He jumped off
and made a most polite bow, and explained he was doing it for
exercise. But I do think that an idiotic reason--don't you, Mamma? It
would be just as much exercise on a road. However, he assured me that,
like th