ntment of ambassador to the United States? I wish my
uncle would let me travel to some foreign country. I am weary of this
Parisian, ball-going life."

"Has Monsieur de Fleury received his appointment at last? I had not
heard of it. Who told you?" inquired Maurice.

"M. de Bois, this very morning."

"Gaston goes with him, I presume?"

"Yes, he said so."

"That is an unexpected pleasure,--that is really delightful!" exclaimed
Maurice, enthusiastically.

Bertha did not reply; but she certainly looked inclined to pout, and as
though she had no very distinct perception of the delight in question.

In a few days Maurice and Ronald were on the great ocean.

A fortnight later the Marquis and Marchioness de Fleury, and the
secretary of the former, M. de Bois, were also on their way to the New
World.

Bertha worried her uncle by her sad face, listless manner, and low
spirits, to say nothing of her loss of appetite (to his thinking the
most important feature of her _malaise_), until he was convinced that
she had lost all interest in Paris, and that her sadness would be
increased by a longer sojourn in the gay capital. When she admitted
this, he kindly inquired if she desired to travel.

"Yes, _very much_," was her reply.

Whither would she go? To Italy? To England? To Russia?

"No,--to America!"

_America!_--land of savages!--land of Pawnees and Choctaws!--land where
cooking must be in its crude infancy! Her uncle would not listen to such
a barbarous proposition; and, finding that he could obtain no other
answer from his wilful and incomprehensible ward, he carried her back to
Bordeaux, consoling himself with the reflection that although the visit
to Paris had not been permanently advantageous to his niece, the
culinary knowledge acquired by Lucien was a full compensation.

CHAPTER XVII.

"CHIFFONS."

"Chiffons!" "_talking chiffons!_" "_writing chiffons!_"--will any one
have the goodness to furnish us with a literal yet lucid interpretation
of this enigmatical form of speech so incessantly employed in the
Parisian _beau monde_? Among the translatable words of the French
language,--among the expressive terms which cannot be rendered by
equally significant expressions in our own more copious tongue,--among
the phraseology invented to convey ideas which the phrases themselves
certainly do not suggest,--the common application of this curt little
word "_chiffons_" holds a distinguished place. Look for "_ch