gone that in that class of life in France they never shook hands with
a lady, and that the poor man was very much embarrassed. He was very
useful to W. as a political agent, as he was kind to the poor people
and took small (or no) fees. They all loved him, and talked to him
quite freely. His women-kind were very shy and provincial. I think our
visits were a great trial to them. They always returned them most
punctiliously, and came in all their best clothes. When we went to see
them we generally found them in short black skirts, and when they were
no longer very young, with black caps, but they always had handsome
silk dresses, velvet cloaks, and hats with flowers and feathers when
they came to see us. Some of them took the cup of tea we offered, but
they didn't know what to do with it, and sat on the edge of their
chairs, looking quite miserable until we relieved them of the burden
of the tea-cup. Mme. A. was rather against the tea-table; she
preferred the old-fashioned tray handed around with wine and cakes,
but I persuaded her to try, and after a little while she acknowledged
that it was better to have the tea-table brought in. It made a
diversion; I got up to make the tea. Someone gave me a chair, someone
else handed the cups. It made a little movement, and was not so stiff
as when we all sat for over an hour on the same chairs making
conversation. It is terrible to have to make conversation, and
extraordinary how little one finds to say. We had always talked easily
enough at home, but then things came more naturally, and even the
violent family discussions were amusing, but my recollection of these
French provincial visits is something awful. Everybody so polite, so
stiff, and the long pauses when nobody seemed to have anything to say.
I of course was a novelty and a foreign element--they didn't quite
know what to do with me. Even to Mme. A., and I grew very fond of her,
and she was invariably charming to me, I was something different. We
had many talks on every possible subject during our long drives, and