en of as having seen 'better days' by people who haven't.
There! Don't rap your desk with your pencil when you speak to me, or
I shall call out 'Cash!' before the whole class." So regrettable an
exhibition of temper naturally alienated certain of her compatriots who
were unduly sensitive of their origin, and as they formed a considerable
colony who were then reveling in the dregs of the Empire and the last
orgies of a tottering court, eventually cost her her place. A republican
so aristocratic was not to be tolerated by the true-born Americans who
paid court to De Morny for the phosphorescent splendors of St. Cloud
and the Tuileries, and Miss Helen lost their favor. But she had already
saved enough money for the Conservatoire and a little attic in a very
tall house in a narrow street that trickled into the ceaseless flow
of the Rue Lafayette. Here for four years she trotted backwards
and forwards regularly to work with the freshness of youth and the
inflexible set purpose of maturity. Here, rain or shine, summer or
winter, in the mellow season when the large cafes expanded under the
white sunshine into an overflow of little tables on the pavement, or
when the red glow of the Brasserie shone through frosty panes on the
turned-up collars of pinched Parisians who hurried by, she was always to
be seen.

Half Paris had looked into her clear, gray eyes and passed on; a smaller
and not very youthful portion of Paris had turned and followed her with
small advantage to itself and happily no fear to her. For even in her
young womanhood she kept her child's loving knowledge of that great
city; she even had an innocent camaraderie with street sweepers, kiosk
keepers, and lemonade venders, and the sternness of conciergedom
melted before her. In this wholesome, practical child's experience she
naturally avoided or overlooked what would not have interested a child,
and so kept her freshness and a certain national shrewd simplicity
invincible. There is a story told of her girlhood that, one day playing
in the Tuileries gardens, she was approached by a gentleman with a waxed
mustache and a still more waxen cheek beneath his heavy-lidded eyes.
There was an exchange of polite amenities.

"And your name, ma petite?"

"Helen," responded the young girl naively. "What's yours?"

"Ah," said the kind gentleman, gallantly pulling at his mustache, "if
you are Helen I am Paris."

The young girl raised her clear eyes to his and said gravely, "