for some years:

"Victory! It is decided! Richard has consented. I shall arrive in April,
and become a Frenchwoman again. You offered to undertake all the
preparations for our settlement in Paris. I am horribly presuming--I
accept! When I arrive in Paris, I should like to be able to enjoy Paris,
and not be obliged to lose my first month in running after upholsterers,
coach-builders, horse-dealers. I should like, on arriving at the railway
station, to find awaiting me my carriage, my coachman, my horses. That
very day I should like you to dine with me at my home. Hire or buy a
mansion, engage the servants, choose the horses, the carriages, the
liveries. I depend entirely upon you. As long as the liveries are blue,
that is the only point. This line is added at the request of Bettina.

"We shall bring only seven persons with us. Richard will have his valet,
Bettina and I two ladies' maids; then there are the two governesses for
the children, and, besides these, two boys, Toby and Bobby, who ride to
perfection. We should never find in Paris such a perfect pair.

"Everything else, people and things, we shall leave in New York. No, not
quite everything; I had for gotten four little ponies, four little gems,
black as ink. We have not the heart to leave them; we shall drive them in
a phaeton; it is delightful. Both Bettina and I drive four-in-hand very
well. Ladies can drive four-in-hand in the Bois very early in the
morning; can't they? Here it is quite possible. Above all, my dear Katie,
do not consider money. Be as extravagant as you like, that is all I ask."
The same day that Mrs. Norton received this letter witnessed the failure
of a certain Garneville. He was a great speculator who had been on a
false scent. Stocks had fallen just when he had expected a rise. This
Garneville had, six weeks before, installed himself in a brand-new house,
which had no other fault than a too startling magnificence. Mrs. Norton
signed an agreement--100,000 francs a year, with the option of buying
house and furniture for 2,000,000 during the first year of possession. A
famous upholsterer undertook to correct and subdue the exaggerated
splendor of a loud and gorgeous luxury. That done, Mrs. Scott's friend
had the good fortune to lay her hand on two of those eminent artists
without whom the routine of a great house can neither be established nor
carried on. The first, a chef of the first rank, who had just left an
ancient mansion of the Faubour