her life; never had seen any of the
magnificent pictures or world-famous statuary there, because girls were
not allowed to go there, lest they should see something that they ought
not to see. I suppose they look with wonder at the young American girls
who march up to anything that ever was created, with undismayed front.

Another Frenchwoman, a lady of talent and the best breeding, recently
said to a friend, in entire unconsciousness that she was saying anything
remarkable, that, when she was seventeen, her great desire was to
marry one of her uncles (a thing not very unusual with the papal
dispensation), in order to keep all the money in the family! That was
the ambition of a girl of seventeen.

I like, on these sunny days, to look into the Luxembourg Garden: nowhere
else is the eye more delighted with life and color. In the afternoon,
especially, it is a baby-show worth going far to see. The avenues
are full of children, whose animated play, light laughter, and happy
chatter, and pretty, picturesque dress, make a sort of fairy grove
of the garden; and all the nurses of that quarter bring their charges
there, and sit in the shade, sewing, gossiping, and comparing the merits
of the little dears. One baby differs from another in glory, I suppose;
but I think on such days that they are all lovely, taken in the mass,
and all in sweet harmony with the delicious atmosphere, the tender
green, and the other flowers of spring. A baby can't do better than to
spend its spring days in the Luxembourg Garden.

There are several ways of seeing Paris besides roaming up and down
before the blazing shop-windows, and lounging by daylight or gaslight
along the crowded and gay boulevards; and one of the best is to go to
the Bois de Boulogne on a fete-day, or when the races are in progress.
This famous wood is very disappointing at first to one who has seen the
English parks, or who remembers the noble trees and glades and avenues
of that at Munich. To be sure, there is a lovely little lake and a
pretty artificial cascade, and the roads and walks are good; but the
trees are all saplings, and nearly all the "wood" is a thicket of small
stuff. Yet there is green grass that one can roll on, and there is a
grove of small pines that one can sit under. It is a pleasant place to
drive toward evening; but its great attraction is the crowd there. All
the principal avenues are lined with chairs, and there people sit to
watch the streams of carriag