As for my French, it is quite as perfect as I want it to be. (I assure you I am often surprised at my own fluency, and, when I get a little more practice in the genders and the idioms, I shall do very well in this respect.) To make a long story short, however, father carried his point, as usual; mother basely deserted me at the last moment, and, after holding out alone for three days, I told them to do with me what they pleased!  Father lost three steamers in succession by remaining in Paris to argue with me.  You know he is like the schoolmaster in Goldsmith’s “Deserted Village”—­“e’en though vanquished, he would argue still.”  He and mother went to look at some seventeen families (they had got the addresses somewhere), while I retired to my sofa, and would have nothing to do with it.  At last they made arrangements, and I was transported to the establishment from which I now write you.  I write you from the bosom of a Parisian menage—­from the depths of a second-rate boarding-house.

Father only left Paris after he had seen us what he calls comfortably settled here, and had informed Madame de Maisonrouge (the mistress of the establishment—­the head of the “family”) that he wished my French pronunciation especially attended to.  The pronunciation, as it happens, is just what I am most at home in; if he had said my genders or my idioms there would have been some sense.  But poor father has no tact, and this defect is especially marked since he has been in Europe.  He will be absent, however, for three months, and mother and I shall breathe more freely; the situation will be less intense.  I must confess that we breathe more freely than I expected, in this place, where we have been for about a week.  I was sure, before we came, that it would prove to be an establishment of the lowest description; but I must say that, in this respect, I am agreeably disappointed.  The French are so clever that they know even how to manage a place of this kind.  Of course it is very disagreeable to live with strangers, but as, after all, if I were not staying with Madame de Maisonrouge I should not be living in the Faubourg St. Germain, I don’t know that from the point of view of exclusiveness it is any great loss to be here.

Our rooms are very prettily arranged, and the table is remarkably good.  Mamma thinks the whole thing—­the place and the people, the manners and customs—­very amusing; but mamma is very easily amused.  As for me, you know, all that I ask is to be let alone, and not to have people’s society forced upon me.  I have never wanted for society of my own choosing, and, so long as I retain possession of my faculties, I don’t suppose I ever shall.  As I said, however, the place is very well managed, and I succeed in doing as I please, which, you know, is my most cherished pursuit.  Madame de Maisonrouge has a great deal of tact—­much more than poor father.  She is what they call here a belle femme, which means that she is a tall, ugly woman,