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t all these fine people have done, and that's the way they know each other so well. All the Americans are intimate in Paris, and then when they come back they are all friends together." Mr. Fairchild listened and pondered. He was as tired as his wife with nothing to do; and moreover deeply mortified, though he said less about it, at not being admitted among those with whom he had no tastes or associations in common, and he consented. The house was shut up and the Fairchilds were off. * * * * * "Who are those Fairchilds," asked somebody in Paris, "that one sees every where, where money can gain admittance?" "Oh, I don't know," replied Miss Rutherford. "They traveled down the Rhine with us last summer, and were our perfect torment. We could not shake them off." "What sort of people are they?" was the next question. "Ignorant past belief: but that would not so much matter if she were not such a spiteful little creature. I declare I heard more gossip and ill-natured stories from her about Americans in Paris than I ever heard in all the rest of my life put together." "And rich?" "Yes, I suppose so--for they spent absurdly. They are just those ignorant, vulgar people that one only meets in traveling, and that make us blush for our country and countrymen. Such people should not have passports." "Fairchild," said Mrs. Castleton. "The name is familiar to me. Oh, now I remember. But they can't be the same. The Fairchilds I knew were people in humble circumstances. They lived in ---- street." "Yes. I dare say they are the very people," replied Miss Rutherford. "He has made money rapidly within a few years." "But she was the best little creature I ever knew," persisted Mrs. Castleton. "My baby was taken ill while we were in the country boarding at the same house, and this Mrs. Fairchild came to me at once, and helped me get a warm bath, and watched and nursed the child with me as if it had been her own. I remember I was very grateful for her excessive kindness and attention." "Well, I dare say," replied Miss Rutherford. "But that was when she was poor, and, as you say, humble, Mrs. Castleton. Very probably she may have been kind-hearted originally. She does love her children dearly. She has that merit; but now that she is rich, and wants to be fine and fashionable, and don't know how to manage it, and can't succeed, you never knew any body so spiteful and jealous as she is of all those
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