I went back there several times afterward, taking Francis with me, and it was curious how out of the world one felt.  Paris, our Paris, might have been miles away.  I learned to know some of the habitues quite well—­a white-haired old gentleman who always brought bread for the birds; they knew him perfectly and would flutter down to the Square as soon as he appeared—­a handsome young man with a tragic face, always alone, walking up and down muttering and talking to himself—­he may have been an aspirant for the Odeon or some of the theatres in the neighbourhood—­a lame man on crutches, a child walking beside him looking wistfully at the children playing about but not daring to leave her charge—­groups of students hurrying through the gardens on their way to the Sorbonne, their black leather serviettes under their arms—­couples always everywhere.  I don’t think there were many foreigners or tourists,—­I never heard anything but French spoken.  Even the most disreputable-looking old beggar at the gate who sold shoe-laces, learned to know us, and would run to open the door of the carriage.

With the contrariety of human nature, some people would say of feminine nature, now that I felt I was not going to live much longer on the rive gauche I was getting quite fond of it.  Life was so quiet and restful in those long, narrow streets, some even with grass growing on the pavement—­no trams, no omnibuses, very little passing, glimpses occasionally of big houses standing well back from the street, a good-sized courtyard in front and garden at the back—­the classic Faubourg St. Germain hotel entre cour et jardin.  I went to tea sometimes with a friend who lived in a big, old-fashioned house in the rue de Varenne.  She lived on the fourth floor—­one went up a broad, bare, cold stone staircase (which always reminded me of some of the staircases in the Roman palaces).  Her rooms were large, very high ceilings, very little furniture in them, very little fire in winter, fine old family portraits on the walls, but from the windows one looked down on a lovely garden where the sun shone and the birds sang all day.  It was just like being in the country, so extraordinarily quiet.  A very respectable man servant in an old-fashioned brown livery, with a great many brass buttons, who looked as old as the house itself and as if he were part of it, always opened the door.  Her husband was a literary man who made conferences at the Sorbonne and the College de France, and they lived entirely in that quarter—­came very rarely to our part of Paris.  He was an old friend of W.’s, and they came sometimes to dine with us.  He deplored W.’s having gone to the Foreign Office—­thought the Public Instruction was so much more to his tastes and habits.  She had an English grandmother, knew English quite well, and read English reviews and papers.  She had once seen Queen Victoria and was very interested in all that concerned her.  Queen Victoria had a great prestige in France.  People admired not only the wise sovereign who had weathered successfully so many changes, but the beautiful woman’s life as wife and mother.  She was always spoken of with the greatest respect, even by people who were not sympathetic to England as a nation.