Paris looked very modern after the peculiar quaint richness and air of
the Middle Ages which distinguish Rouen. Rooms had been engaged for
Mrs. Ashe's party in a _pension_ near the Arc d'Etoile, and there they
drove immediately on arriving. The rooms were not in the _pension_
itself, but in a house close by,--a sitting-room with six mirrors,
three clocks, and a pinched little grate about a foot wide, a
dining-room just large enough for a table and four chairs, and two
bedrooms. A maid called Amandine had been detailed to take charge of
these rooms and serve their meals.

Dampness, as Katy afterward wrote to Clover, was the first impression
they received of "gay Paris." The tiny fire in the tiny grate had only
just been lighted, and the walls and the sheets and even the blankets
felt chilly and moist to the touch. They spent their first evening in
hanging the bedclothes round the grate and piling on fuel; they even set
the mattresses up on edge to warm and dry! It was not very enlivening,
it must be confessed. Amy had taken a cold, Mrs. Ashe looked worried,
and Katy thought of Burnet and the safety and comfort of home with a
throb of longing.

The days that ensued were not brilliant enough to remove this
impression. The November fogs seemed to have followed them across the
Channel, and Paris remained enveloped in a wet blanket which dimmed and
hid its usually brilliant features. Going about in cabs with the windows
drawn up, and now and then making a rush through the drip into shops,
was not exactly delightful, but it seemed pretty much all that they
could do. It was worse for Amy, whose cold kept her indoors and denied
her even the relaxation of the cab. Mrs. Ashe had engaged a
well-recommended elderly English maid to come every morning and take
care of Amy while they were out; and with this respectable functionary,