condition to your friends? When I was in Plainton, I thought
of you as so much better off than myself in this respect, for over here
there would be no one to pry into your affairs. I did not know you had
friends in Paris."

"All that need not trouble me in the least," said Edna. "When I went to
school with Edith Southall, who is now Mrs. Sylvester, my father was in a
very good business, and we lived handsomely. It was not until I was
nearly grown up that he failed and died, and then Ralph and I went to
Cincinnati, and my life of hard work began. So you see there is no reason
why my friends in Paris should ask any questions, or I should make
explanations."

"I wish it were that way in Plainton," said Mrs. Cliff, with a sigh. "I
would go back there the moment another ship started from France."

So it was Miss Edna Markham of New York who took apartments at the Hotel
Boileau, and it was she who called upon the wife of the American
secretary of legation.

CHAPTER XXXI

WAITING

For several weeks after their arrival, the members of the little party
had but one common object,--to see and enjoy the wonders and beauties of
Paris,--and in their sight-seeing they nearly always went together,
sometimes taking Cheditafa and Mok with them. But as time went on, their
different dispositions began to assert themselves, and in their daily
pursuits they gradually drifted apart.

Mrs. Cliff was not a cultivated woman, but she had a good, common-sense
appreciation of art in its various forms. She would tramp with untiring
step through the galleries of the Louvre, but when she had seen a
gallery, she did not care to visit it again. She went to the theatre and
the opera because she wanted to see how they acted and sang in France,
but she did not wish to go often to a place where she could not
understand a word that was spoken.

Ralph was now under the charge of a tutor, Professor Barre by name, who
took a great interest in this American boy, whose travels and experiences
had given him a precocity which the professor had never met with in any
of his other scholars. Ralph would have much preferred to study Paris
instead of books, and the professor, who was able to give a great deal of
time to his pupil, did not altogether ignore this natural instinct of a
youthful heart. In consequence, the two became very good friends, and
Ralph was the best-satisfied member of the party.

It was in regard to social affairs that the lives