socially daring.  M. Villars is funny in the fashion of his class.  He says that we English-speaking class of foreigners bear aloft a banner with the strange device ’All right.’  M. Villars proceeds to remark, ’We take from foreigners what we should leave to them, their feet upon chairs, and their hats upon their heads, as at the Italiens the other night.’  He finds that a cosmopolitan invasion has made French society less delicate, less gallant, less polite.

[Illustration:  JONES ON THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE.]

“We are to blame!  Belgravia is not refined enough for the Avenue de l’Imperatrice.  Clapham, I infer, would not be tolerated at Batignolles.  I repeat, I have gone through some arduous times here, in the midst of the foreign invasion of polite society.  I have scratched neither Russ, nor German, nor Servian, nor Wallachian.  But I must be permitted to observe, that I have found their manners quite equal to any that were native.  Shall I go further, Emmy, and speak all my mind?  There is a race of the new-rich—­of the recently honoured, here, who are French from their shoe-rosettes to their chignons.  They come direct from the Bourse, and from the Pereire fortune-manufactory of the Place Vendome.  They bring noise and extravagance, but not manners.  I have seen many of my countrymen in Parisian drawing-rooms, in the midst of Frenchmen, Russians, Princes of various lands; and, do you know, I have not seen anything much better in the way of bearing, manners, and mental culture and natural refinement than the English gentleman.  I feel quite positive that it is not he who has lowered the manners or morals of Napoleon the Third’s subjects.  I am bold enough to think that a probationary tour through some of our London drawing-rooms would do good to the saucy young seigneurs I see leaning on the balcony of the Jockey Club when we are driving past.

“I will remind M. Villars that his proverb has been parodied, and that it has been said, ‘Scratch a Frenchman, and you find a dancing-master.’  But I know this proverb to be foolish; and I am candid and liberal enough to say so.

“I hope you are not too lonely, and don’t keep too much to your room.  Now I know by experience what life in a boarding-house means.  How must you feel, dearest Emmy, alone!  Je t’embrasse.  How gets on the German?

“We have such a specimen of the gandin here—­the Vicomte de Gars.  I think John Catt had better make haste over.

“Yours affectionately,

“CARRIE.”

CHAPTER IX.

Miss Carrie Cockayne to Miss Sharp.

“Rue Millevoye.