small to receive visitors. I suppose she spoke the truth, but I am sure
she has got some reason, all the same. She has got some idea, and I am
bound to find out before I go, if I have to ask everybody in the house. I
_am_ right down curious. I wonder if she doesn't think me refined--or if
she had ever heard anything against Bangor? I can't think it is that.
Don't you remember when Clara Barnard went to visit New York, three years
ago, how much attention she received? And you know Clara _is_ Bangor, to
the soles of her shoes. Ask William Platt--so long as he isn't a
native--if he doesn't consider Clara Barnard refined.

Apropos, as they say here, of refinement, there is another American in
the house--a gentleman from Boston--who is just crowded with it. His
name is Mr. Louis Leverett (such a beautiful name, I think), and he is
about thirty years old. He is rather small, and he looks pretty sick; he
suffers from some affection of the liver. But his conversation is
remarkably interesting, and I delight to listen to him--he has such
beautiful ideas. I feel as if it were hardly right, not being in French;
but, fortunately, he uses a great many French expressions. It's in a
different style from the conversation of Mr. Verdier--not so
complimentary, but more intellectual. He is intensely fond of pictures,
and has given me a great many ideas about them which I should never have
gained without him; I shouldn't have known where to look for such ideas.
He thinks everything of pictures; he thinks we don't make near enough of
them. They seem to make a good deal of them here; but I couldn't help
telling him the other day that in Bangor I really don't think we do.

If I had any money to spend I would buy some and take them back, to hang
up. Mr. Leverett says it would do them good--not the pictures, but the
Bangor folks. He thinks everything of the French, too, and says we don't
make nearly enough of _them_. I couldn't help telling him the other day