aurants and snuffy inns, or run the
gauntlet of Continental hotels, every meal being an experiment of great
interest, if not of danger, to say that this brisk little waitress
spread a snowy cloth, and set thereon meat and bread and butter and a
salad: that conveys no idea to your mind. Because you cannot see that
the loaf of wheaten bread was white and delicate, and full of the
goodness of the grain; or that the butter, yellow as a guinea, tasted of
grass and cows, and all the rich juices of the verdant year, and was not
mere flavorless grease; or that the cuts of roast beef, fat and
lean, had qualities that indicate to me some moral elevation in
the cattle,--high-toned, rich meat; or that the salad was crisp and
delicious, and rather seemed to enjoy being eaten, at least, did n't
disconsolately wilt down at the prospect, as most salad does. I do not
wonder that Walter Scott dwells so much on eating, or lets his heroes
pull at the pewter mugs so often. Perhaps one might find a better lunch
in Paris, but he surely couldn't find this one.

PARIS IN MAY--FRENCH GIRLS--THE EMPEROR AT LONGCHAMPS

It was the first of May when we came up from Italy. The spring grew on
us as we advanced north; vegetation seemed further along than it was
south of the Alps. Paris was bathed in sunshine, wrapped in delicious
weather, adorned with all the delicate colors of blushing spring. Now
the horse-chestnuts are all in bloom and so is the hawthorn; and in
parks and gardens there are rows and alleys of trees, with blossoms
of pink and of white; patches of flowers set in the light green grass;
solid masses of gorgeous color, which fill all the air with perfume;
fountains that dance in the sunlight as if just released from prison;
and everywhere the soft suffusion of May. Young maidens who make their
first communion go into the churches in processions of hundreds, all
in white, from the flowing veil to the satin slipper; and I see them
everywhere for a week after the ceremony, in their robes of innocence,
often with bouquets of flowers, and attended by their friends; all
concerned making it a joyful holiday, as it ought to be. I hear, of
course, with what false ideas of life these girls are educated; how
they are watched before marriage; how the marriage is only one of
arrangement, and what liberty they eagerly seek afterwards. I met a
charming Paris lady last winter in Italy, recently married, who said
she had never been in the Louvre in