"Little Princess," which her pretty, imperious ways made peculiarly
appropriate.

I do not know how her parents dared trust her to me for a year beyond
the sea, but they did. We set off in high enthusiasm, and Helen was full
of mirth and laughter till we were fairly on board the steamer in New
York harbor, when she threw herself on her father's breast with a
gesture of utter abandonment that would have made the fortune of a
débutante on any stage in the world. It was so unlooked-for that we all
broke down, and Mr. St. Clair was strongly inclined to take her home
with him. But so sudden was she in all her moods that his foot had
scarcely touched the shore before she was again radiant with
anticipation.

I will not linger on the pleasant summer travel, the Rhine majesty, the
Alpine glory. September saw us established in the city of cities--Paris.
Everywhere we had met throngs of Americans. Neighbors from over the way
in our own city greeted us warmly in most unexpected places. But we had
not crossed the ocean merely to see our own countrymen. In Paris we were
determined to eschew hotels and pensions and to become the inmates of a
French home. Everybody told us this would be impossible, but I find
nothing so stimulating as the assertion that a thing can't be done. Two
weeks of eager inquiry, and we were received into a family which could
not have been more to our wish if it had been created expressly for us.
It was that of Monsieur Le Fort, a professor in the Medical College, a
handsome elderly man with the bit of red ribbon coveted by Frenchmen in
his buttonhole. Madame Le Fort, a charming, graceful woman midway
between thirty and forty, and a pretty daughter of seventeen, completed
the family. With great satisfaction we took possession of the pretty
rooms, all white and gold, that overlooked the Rond Point des Champs