are as good as gold and will make a nice wife.

[Sidenote: _The Trouville Casino_]

But it must be a bother picking up a taste for having baths and things
afterwards, if it isn't from instinct, don't you think so, Mamma? And
I am glad I am not French. It is even eccentric if you sleep with your
window open; Heloise screamed at me for that. They all assure me it
gives sore eyes, besides encouraging an early grave. I said at last
that in England we slept the whole summer in the open air. I was so
exasperated, and they would believe anything.

Oh, I wish we were back on the _Sauterelle!_--which reminds me I have
never told you anything about Trouville. The whole place was full of
such beautiful ladies, and such nice clothes. They must all have been
married, their things were so becoming. The Vicomte seemed to know them
well, and they all spoke of them by their Christian names, such as,
_Voila Blanche d'Antin!_ or _Emilie_ something else, as we passed them,
but none of our party bowed to the really pretty ones, which I thought
very queer if they knew them well enough to speak of them by their
Christian names. I remember you always told me never to do that--I mean
to use people's first names in speaking of them if you are not
acquainted with them--but evidently it is different here. The
Tournelles and all the others did stop to speak to heaps of duller
looking people, and every one tried to persuade us to stay and go to
the races.

We went to the Casino in the evening and saw a piece; it was boring. We
had two boxes, and they kept talking to me all the time, so I really
could not pay much attention to the acting.

Down below us was the Marquise de Vermandoise's brother-in-law, with a
rather dowdy little woman. They talked a great deal about him, and the
Marquise said it was just like his economy to go to Trouville with such
"une espece de petite fagottee bon marche." So I suppose it was some
poor relation he was treating, but they seemed very good friends, as he
held her hand all the time, quite forgetting the people up above could
see. Then we played "Petits Chevaux," and I won every time; I do like
it very much.

[Sidenote: _A Bathing Party_]

We came back to Vinant by the two o'clock train, but first we went to
bathe. I was really annoyed at having to have a hired dress, a
frightful thing, and weighing a ton. The Marquise and the others had
brought theirs on the chance of our having time for a dip. The
Baronne's