not cough there perpetually; while no sooner do I get to Paris than the cough vanishes—­it is all but gone now.  The lightness of the air here makes the place tenable—­so far, at least.  We made many an effort to get an apartment near the Madeleine, but we had to sacrifice sun or money, or breath, in going up to the top of a house, and the sacrifice seemed too great upon consideration, and we came off to the ‘Avenue des Champs-Elysees,’ on the sunshiny side of the way, to a southern aspect, and pretty cheerful carpeted rooms—­a drawing room, a dressing and writing room for Robert, a small dining room, two comfortable bedrooms and a third bedroom upstairs for the femme de service, kitchen, &c., for two hundred francs a month.  Not too dear, we think.  About the same that we paid, out of the season, in London for the miserable accommodation we had there.  But perhaps you won’t come near us now; we may be too much ‘out of the way’ for you.  Is it so indeed?  Understand that close by us is a stand of coupes and fiacres, not to profane your ears with the mention of the continual stream of omnibuses by means of which you may reach the other end of Paris for six sous.  And there might be a possibility of taking a small apartment for you in this very house.  See how I castle-build.

But if the Crystal Palace vanishes from the face of the earth, who shall trust any more in castles?  Will they really pull it down, do you think?  If it’s a bubble, it’s a glass bubble, and not meant, therefore, for bursting in the air, it seems to me.  And you do want a place in England for sculpture, and also to show people how olives grow.  What a beautiful winter garden it would be!  But they will pull it down, perhaps; and then, the last we shall have seen of it will be in this description of your letter, and that’s seeing it worthily, too.

We were from home last night; we went to Lady Elgin’s reception, and met a Madame Mohl, who was entertaining, and is to come to us this morning—­

She came as I wrote those words.  She knows you, among her other advantages, and we have been talking of you, dear friend, and we are going to her on Friday evening to see some of the French.  I shall have to go to prison very soon, I suppose, as usual, for the winter months, for here is the twenty-first of October, though this is the first fire we have had occasion for.  It was colder this morning, but we have had exquisite weather, really, ever since we left England.

The ‘elf’ is flourishing in all good fairyhood, with a scarlet rose leaf on each cheek.  Wilson says she never knew him to have such an irreproachable appetite.  He is charmed with Paris, and its magnificent Punches, and roundabouts, and balloons—­which last he says, looking up after them gravely, ‘go to God.’  The child has curious ideas about theology already.  He is of opinion that God ‘lives among the birds.’  He has taken to calling himself ’Peninni,’[3] which sounds something like a fairy’s name, though he means it for ‘Wiedeman.’