best she had ever eaten. She liked the tiny strawberries which were
beginning to come into season; she liked _les petites suisses_; and
she liked the chatter of her friends, and her own chatter across the
little marble table. She thought that she had never enjoyed talking so
much before.

One evening, as they stirred their coffee, Elsie said, looking down
the street, 'What a pretty effect.'

Mildred leaned over her friend's shoulder and saw the jagged outline
of the street and a spire beautiful in the sunset. She was annoyed
that she had not first discovered the picturesqueness of the
perspective, and, when Elsie sketched the street on the marble table,
she felt that she would never be able to draw like that.

The weather grew warmer, and, in June, M. Daveau and three or four of
the leading students proposed that they should make up a party to
spend Sunday at Bas Mendon. To arrive at Bas Mendon in time for
breakfast they would have to catch the ten o'clock boat from the Pont
Neuf. Cissy, Elsie, and Mildred were asked: there were no French girls
to ask, so, as Elsie said, 'they'd have the men to themselves.'

The day impressed itself singularly on Mildred's mind. She never
forgot the drive to the Pont Neuf in the early morning, the sunshine
had seemed especially lovely; she did not forget her fear lest she
should be late--she was only just in time; they were waiting for her,
their paint-boxes slung over their shoulders, and the boat was moving
alongside as she ran down the steps. She did not forget M. Daveau's
black beard; she saw it and remembered it long afterwards. But she
never could recall her impressions of the journey--she only remembered