er worthy husband, a tall,
lean, grizzled, well-brushed gentleman who wore a gold eye-glass and
carried his hat a little too much on the back of his head, to mere
platonic praise of the "distractions" of Paris--they were his great
word--since you would never have guessed from what cares he escaped to
them. One of them was that he went every day to the American banker's,
where he found a post-office that was almost as sociable and colloquial
an institution as in an American country town. He passed an hour (in
fine weather) in a chair in the Champs Elysees, and he dined uncommonly
well at his own table, seated above a waxed floor which it was Mrs.
Luce's happiness to believe had a finer polish than any other in the
French capital. Occasionally he dined with a friend or two at the Cafe
Anglais, where his talent for ordering a dinner was a source of felicity
to his companions and an object of admiration even to the headwaiter
of the establishment. These were his only known pastimes, but they had
beguiled his hours for upwards of half a century, and they doubtless
justified his frequent declaration that there was no place like Paris.
In no other place, on these terms, could Mr. Luce flatter himself that
he was enjoying life. There was nothing like Paris, but it must be
confessed that Mr. Luce thought less highly of this scene of his
dissipations than in earlier days. In the list of his resources his
political reflections should not be omitted, for they were doubtless the
animating principle of many hours that superficially seemed vacant.
Like many of his fellow colonists Mr. Luce was a high--or rather a
deep--conservative, and gave no countenance to the government lately
established in France. He had no faith in its duration and would assure
you from year to year that its end was close at hand. "They want to be
kept down, sir, to be kept down; nothing but the strong hand--the iron
heel--will do for them," he would frequently say of the French people;
and his ideal of a fine showy clever rule was that of the superseded
Empire. "Paris is much less attractive than in the days of the Emperor;
HE knew how to make a city pleasant," Mr. Luce had often remarked to
Mrs. Touchett, who was quite of his own way of thinking and wished to
know what one had crossed that odious Atlantic for but to get away from
republics.

"Why, madam, sitting in the Champs Elysees, opposite to the Palace of
Industry, I've seen the court-carriages from the