I bade her other parent good-bye. “Don’t wait for me,” he said, sitting there on his stool and not meeting my eye. “I’ve got to see this thing through.”

I went back to the Pension Beaurepas, and when an hour later I left it with my luggage these interesting friends had not returned.

A BUNDLE OF LETTERS

I
FROM MISS MIRANDA HOPE IN PARIS TO MRS. ABRAHAM C. HOPE AT BANGOR MAINE

September 5, 1879.

My dear Mother,

I’ve kept you posted as far as Tuesday week last, and though my letter won’t have reached you yet I’ll begin another before my news accumulates too much. I’m glad you show my letters round in the family, for I like them all to know what I’m doing, and I can’t write to every one, even if I do try to answer all reasonable expectations. There are a great many unreasonable ones, as I suppose you know—not yours, dear mother, for I’m bound to say that you never required of me more than was natural. You see you’re reaping your reward: I write to you before I write to any one else.

There’s one thing I hope—that you don’t show any of my letters to William Platt. If he wants to see any of my letters he knows the right way to go to work. I wouldn’t have him see one of these letters, written for circulation in the family, for anything in the world. If he wants one for himself he has got to write to me first. Let him write to me first and then I’ll see about answering him. You can show him this if you like; but if you show him anything more I’ll never write to you again.

I told you in my last about my farewell to England, my crossing the Channel and my first impressions of Paris. I’ve thought a great deal about that lovely England since I left it, and all the famous historic scenes I visited; but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not a country in which I should care to reside. The position of woman doesn’t seem to me at all satisfactory, and that’s a point, you know, on which I feel very strongly. It seems to me that in England they play a very faded-out part, and those with whom I conversed had a kind of downtrodden tone, a spiritless and even benighted air, as if they were used to being snubbed and bullied and as if they liked it, which made me want to give them a good shaking. There are a great many people—and a great many things too—over here that I should like to get at for that purpose. I should like to shake the starch out of some of them and the dust out of the others. I know fifty girls in Bangor that come much more up to my notion of the stand a truly noble woman should take than those young ladies in England. But they had the sweetest way of speaking, as if it were a second nature, and the men are remarkably handsome. (You can show that to William Platt if you like.)

I gave you my first impressions of Paris, which quite came up to my expectations, much as I had heard and read about it. The objects of interest are extremely numerous, and the climate remarkably cheerful and sunny. I should say the position of woman here was considerably higher, though by no means up to the American standard. The manners of the people are in some respects extremely peculiar, and I feel at last that I’m indeed in foreign parts. It is, however, a truly elegant city (much more majestic than New York) and I’ve spent a great deal of time in visiting the various monuments and palaces. I won’t give you an account of all my wanderings, though I’ve been most indefatigable; for I’m keeping, as I told you before, a most exhaustive journal, which I’ll allow you the privilege of reading on my return to Bangor. I’m getting on remarkably well, and I must say I’m sometimes surprised at my universal good fortune. It only shows what a little Bangor energy and gumption will accomplish wherever applied. I’ve discovered none of those objections to a young lady travelling in Europe by herself of which we heard so much before I left, and I don’t expect I ever shall, for I certainly don’t mean to look for them. I know what I want and I always go straight for it.