as now in a society altogether
unlike that which I had just left.

At Rachel's there were present only two ladies besides herself, and
those were members of her own family. Here I found at least an equal
proportion of both sexes. At Rachel's a princely magnificence reigned.
Here the rooms were elegant, but simple; the paintings choice but few;
the ornaments costly, but in no unnecessary profusion.

"It is just the difference between taste and display," said Dalrymple.
"Rachel is an actress, and Madame de Courcelles is a lady. Rachel
exhibits her riches as an Indian chief exhibits the scalps of his
victims--Madame de Courcelles adorns her house with no other view than
to make it attractive to her friends."

"As a Greek girl covers her head with sequins to show the amount of her
fortune, and an English girl puts a rose in her hair for grace and
beauty only," said I, fancying that I had made rather a clever
observation. I was therefore considerably disappointed when Dalrymple
merely said, "just so."

The lady in the larger room here finished her song and returned to her
seat, amid a shower of _bravas_.

"She sings exquisitely," said I, following her with my eyes.

"And so she ought," replied my friend. "She is the Countess Rossi, whom
you may have heard of as Mademoiselle Sontag."

"What! the celebrated Sontag?" I exclaimed.

"The same. And the gentleman to whom she is now speaking is no less
famous a person than the author of _Pelham_."

I was as much delighted as a rustic at a menagerie, and Dalrymple,
seeing this, continued to point out one celebrity after another till I
began no longer to remember which was which. Thus Lamartine, Horace
Vernet, Scribe, Baron Humboldt, Miss Bremer, Arago, Auber, and Sir Edwin
Landseer, were successively indicated, and I thought myself one of the
most fortunate fellows in Paris, only to be allowed to look upon them.

"I suppose the spirit of lion-hunting is an original instinct," I said,
presently. "Call it vulgar excitement, if you will; but I must confess
that to see these people, and to be able to write about them to my
father, is just the most delightful thing that has happened to me since
I left home."

"Call things by their right names, Damon," said Dalrymple,
good-naturedly. "If you were a _parvenu_ giving a party, and wanted all
these fine folks to be seen at your house, that would be lion-hunting;
but being whom and what you are, it is hero-worship--a disease peculi