YVONNE TO HER MOTHER
Paris.
Dearest Mama: Well we are arrived! It is Paris at last! But I thought we should surely die in transit. I don't know what Uncle would have said if he had known that Lee was in Rouen; he was dreadfully upset over Mrs. Braytree's telling him that she saw Lee in Havre. He was very unreasonable, and laid it up against Lee that Mrs. Braytree saw him. Just as if Lee could help it.
We had a pretty good time coming down, only Mr. Edgar came up and came down with us, and of course Uncle did not like that. I think that Mr. Edgar came up to come down with me because we had a lovely time on the steamer coming over together, but Uncle hardly gave me a chance to speak to him. Uncle seems just instinctively to know whom Edna and I want to talk to, and then won't let us. But of course I'm not complaining, for it was lovely of him to give us this trip, and we're enjoying every minute.
We arrived last night, and the only drawback is that Mrs. Clary isn't here. She left a note, and M. Sibilet's wife is his mother, and has a place out at Neuilly, and they were invited there for three days. She will be back to-morrow, and she left word for us to go straight to the Bon Marché and look at the white suits; so we did so. We told Uncle it was all right for us to go alone, and he had just gotten his mail, so he only said "Hum!" and we went. Just as we were taking the cab, who should we see but Mr. Chopstone. It was so lovely to see him again, and he got into the cab and went with us. We went to the Bon Marché, but it wasn't much fun with a man, so we came out after a little, and he proposed taking the Subway and going to the Trocadero. Just then we met a man that Mr. Chopstone knew, and he had red hair and eye-glasses. Mr. Chopstone introduced him, and invited him to go along; but he said it was no use, because it was the wrong day and we couldn't get in when we got there. By this time we were down in the Subway, and Mr. Chopstone suggested that we go to the Bois, so as not to have to go back up the stairs again. While we were talking, the train came and went in a terrible hurry, and we got aboard in between. After we were off, we found that Mr. Chopstone wasn't on. We didn't know what to do, because, of course, it was he that we knew, and not the red-haired man. The red-haired man said he would do whatever we pleased, and Edna thought we had better get right off; but I thought we ought to go right on. We didn't know what to do, and so we kept on to the Bois.
The Bois was just lovely—all automobiles and babies; and who do you think we met? Betty Burleigh. We were so surprised, for I thought she was in California for her lungs; but it seems that she's been in Dresden for her music all winter, and now she's here for her clothes. She was with an elderly French lady, and I don't think that the elderly French lady liked to have her stop and talk to us. I thought at first that perhaps it wasn't proper on account of the red-haired man, but in a second I saw the real reason. Betty glanced around and said, "Oh, Madame, où est Fakir?" Whereupon the elderly French lady looked absolutely terrified and tore madly off. We had quite a long talk before she came back with the most awful little black dog, which they evidently had no string to. She put him down and began to look displeased again, and Betty just glanced about and said calmly, "Oh, Madame, où es Fakir?" He had absolutely vanished again, and the elderly French lady sort of threw up her eyes and rushed wildly away. The red-haired man said, "Why don't you buy a chain for him?" Betty shrugged the Frenchiest kind of a shrug and said, "I don't have to chase him." The red-haired man said, "I should think she would buy the chain then!" and Betty shrugged a much Frenchier shrug, and said: "I wouldn't allow it. While she is running after him I can do as I please." The red-haired man laughed. Poor madame came panting up with the creature just then, and Betty said sweetly, "Laissez-lui courir," so she had to put him down; but I could see that she meant to keep a sharp eye on him. Betty wanted us all to come to the Palais and lunch with her; but of course we refused, because you wouldn't have liked it, and, anyway, we had to go back to Uncle. She wanted the red-haired man to stay, anyhow, and was quite put out when he declined. Just then two men in an automobile came up and asked her to go and see the balloon ascension. They didn't invite the elderly French lady, and she protested about "comme il faut"—but Betty said, "Où est Fakir?" and, if you'll believe me, that little beast was gone again, and poor madame dashed off in pursuit. Betty made short work of bidding us good-by then, and at once got into the automobile, and was off.
We came slowly along back with the red-haired man, and at the Arc de Triomphe we ran into Mr. Chopstone. It seems he went a station too far because he met some people he knew in the car behind us, and he says we must all go to the Châtelet with him to-night to make up. He said "Uncle, too," so we accepted. Then we took a cab and came back to the hotel, where we found our beloved relative with his feet on the center-table, reading the Paris "Herald." He looked over the top at us and announced that he'd "done the Louvre." I think we must have looked startled, for he went on to say at once that he knew that it was something that had got to be done, and that he shouldn't enjoy, and so he had thought it best to go at it the first thing on the first morning and get it off his mind at once. He was very pleased with himself, because he says the "Baedeker" says that it takes two hours and a half to walk through, and he was only gone from the hotel two hours in all. Edna asked him if he spent much time looking at the pictures, and he said: "Young lady, if you'd ever been in the place, you'd never ask that question. Why, the whole thing is lined with pictures. I bet I dream of gilt frames for a week."
We found our beloved relative