business
men do not dance like everybody else. This fellow, all the time he was
waltzing, reflected silently: "The Simaise family is charming. Tra, la
la, la la la, but it's useless their trying to hurry me on, la la la, la
la la. I shall not propose till the gates of Paris are reopened. Tra la
la, and I shall be able to make all necessary inquiries, la la la!" Thus
thought the first dancing attorney, and in fact, directly the blockade
of Paris was raised, he got his information about the family, and the
marriage did not come off.

Since then, the poor little creatures have missed many other chances.
However, this has in no way spoilt the happiness of the singular
household. On the contrary, the more they live, the merrier they are.
Last winter they changed quarters three times, were sold up once, and
notwithstanding all this, gave two large fancy balls!

[Illustration: p145-156]

[Illustration: p146-157]

[Illustration: p149-160]

FRAGMENT OF A WOMAN'S LETTER FOUND IN THE RUE NOTRE-DAME-DES-CHAMPS

... What it has cost me to marry an artist! Oh, my dear! if I had known!
but young girls have singular ideas about so many things. Just imagine
that at the Exhibition, when I read in the catalogue the addresses of
far-away quiet streets at the further end of Paris, I pictured to myself
peaceable, stay-at-home lives, devoted to work and the family circle,
and I said to myself (feeling beforehand a certainty that I should be
dreadfully jealous), "That is the sort of husband to suit me. He will
always be with me. We shall spend our days together; he at his picture
or sculpture, while I read or sew beside him, in the concentrated light
of the studio." Poor dear innocent! I had not the faintest idea then
what a studio really was, nor of the singular creatures one meets there.
Never, in gazing at those statues of bold undressed goddesses had the
idea occurred to me that there were women daring enough to--and that
even I myself----. Otherwise, I can assure you I should never have
married a sculptor. No, indeed, most decidedly not! I must own, they
were all against this marriage at home; notwithstanding my husband's
fortune, his already famous name, and the fine house he was having built
for us two. It was I alone who would have it so. He was so elegant, so
charming, so eager. I thought, however, he meddled a little too much
about my dress, and the arrangement of my hair: "Do your hair like this;
so," and he would amus