ment until daybreak.

The next day, Paris becomes from a fashionable point of view,
"impossible." If you walk through the richer quarters, you will see only
long lines of closed windows. The approaches to the railway stations are
blocked with cabs piled with trunks and bicycles. The "great world" is
fleeing to the seashore or its _chateaux_, and Paris will know it no more
until January, for the French are a country-loving race, and since there
has been no court, the aristocracy pass longer and longer periods on
their own estates each year, partly from choice and largely to show their
disdain for the republic and its entertainments.

The shady drives in the park, which only a day or two ago were so
brilliant with smart traps and spring toilets, are become a cool
wilderness, where will meet, perhaps, a few maiden ladies exercising fat
dogs, uninterrupted except by the watering-cart or by a few stray
tourists in cabs. Now comes a delightful time for the real amateur of
Paris and the country around, which is full of charming corners where one
can dine at quiet little restaurants, overhanging the water or buried
among trees. You are sure of getting the best of attention from the
waiters, and the dishes you order receive all the cook's attention. Of
an evening the Bois is alive with a myriad of bicycles, their lights
twinkling among the trees like many-colored fire-flies. To any one who
knows how to live there, Paris is at its best in the last half of June
and July. Nevertheless, in a couple of days there will not be an
American in Paris, London being the objective point; for we love to be
"in at the death," and a coronation, a musical festival, or a big race is
sure to attract all our floating population.

The Americans who have the hardest time in Paris are those who try to
"run with the deer and hunt with the hounds," as the French proverb has
it, who would fain serve God and Mammon. As anything especially amusing
is sure to take place on Sunday in this wicked capital, our friends go
through agonies of indecision, their consciences pulling one way, their
desire to amuse themselves the other. Some find a middle course, it
seems, for yesterday this conversation was overheard on the steps of the
American Church:

_First American Lady_: "Are you going to stop for the sermon?"

_Second American Lady_: "I am so sorry I can't, but the races begin at
one!"

No. 20--"The Treadmill."

A half-humorous, half-