I like the way the French take their amusements. At the theatre they
laugh and applaud the wit of the hero and hiss the villain. They shout
their approval of a duel and weep aloud over the death of the aged
mother. When they drive in the Bois they smile and have an air of
enjoyment quite at variance with the bored expression of English and
Americans who have enough money to own carriages. We drove in Hyde
Park in London the day before we came to Paris, and nearly wept with
sympathy for the unspoken grief in the faces of the unfortunate rich
who were at such pains to enjoy themselves.

The second day from that we had a delightful drive in the Bois in
Paris.

"How glad everybody seems to be we have come!" I said to my sister.
"See how pleased they all look."

I was enchanted at their gay faces. I felt like bowing right and left
to them, the way queens and circus girls do.

I never saw such handsome men as I saw in London. I never saw such
beautiful women as I see in Paris.

The Bois has never been so smart as it was the past season, for the
horrible fire of the Bazar de la Charité put an end to the Paris
season, and left those who were not personally bereaved no solace but
the Bois. Consequently, the costumes one saw between five and seven on
that one beautiful boulevard were enough to set one wild. I always
wished that my neck turned on a pivot and that I had eyes set like a
coronet all around my head. My sister and I were in a constant state