re 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, interesting 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.

CHAPTER III

FROM MISS VIOLET RAY, IN PARIS, TO MISS AGNES RICH, IN NEW YORK.

September 21st.

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 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 themselves. But the Americans
who choose this peculiar manner of seeing Paris must be actually ju