ilization. Even in England, in
the higher classes, the cases of distinguished men excepted, it is usual
for the stranger to seek the introduction.

Under such circumstances, coupled with the utter insignificance of an
ordinary individual in a town like Paris, you will easily understand
that we had the first months of our residence entirely to ourselves. As
a matter of course, we called on our own minister and his wife; and, as
a matter of course, we have been included in the dinners and parties
that they are accustomed to give at this season of the year. This,
however, has merely brought us in contact with a chance-medley of our
own countrymen, these diplomatic entertainments being quite obviously a
matter of accident, so far as the set is concerned. The dinners of your
banker, however, are still worse, since with them the visiting-list is
usually a mere extract from the ledger.

Our privacy has not been without its advantages. It has enabled us to
visit all the visible objects without the incumbrance of engagements, and
given me leisure to note and to comment on things that might otherwise
have been overlooked. For several months we have had nothing to do but to
see sights, get familiarized with a situation that, at first, we found
singularly novel, and to brush up our French.

I never had sufficient faith in the popular accounts of the usages of
other countries, to believe one-half of what I have heard. I distrusted
from the first the fact of ladies--I mean real, _bona fide_ ladies, women
of sentiment, delicacy, taste, and condition--frequenting public
eating-houses, and habitually living, without the retirement and reserve
that is so necessary to all _women_, not to say _men_, of the _caste_. I
found it difficult, therefore, to imagine I should meet with many females
of condition in _restaurans_ and _cafes_. Such a thing might happen on an
emergency, but it was assailing too much all those feelings and tastes
which become inherent in refinement, to suppose that the tables of even
the best house of the sort in Paris could be honoured by the presence of
such persons, except under particular circumstances. My own observation
corroborated this opinion, and, in order to make sure of the fact, I have
put the question to nearly every Frenchwoman of rank it has since been my
good fortune to become sufficiently acquainted with to take the liberty.
The answer has been uniform. Such things are sometimes done, but rarely;
and