“I should not be surprised if anybody told me Miss Sarah was born within ten miles of Paris; but she calls herself an American.  The fact is, she speaks English like an Englishwoman, and knows a great deal more of America than you know of Paris.  I have heard her tell the story of her family to a large and attentive audience; but I do not say that I believed it.

“According to her own account, M. Brandon, her father, a thoroughbred Yankee, was a man of great enterprise and energy, who was ten times rich, and as often wretchedly poor again in his life, but died leaving several millions.  This Brandon, she says, was a banker and broker in New York when the civil war broke out.  He entered the army, and in less than six months, thanks to his marvellous energy, he rose to be a general.  When peace came, he was without occupation, and did not know what on earth to do with himself.  Fortunately, his good star led him into a region where large tracts of land happened to be for sale.  He bought them for a few thousand dollars, and soon after discovered on his purchase the most productive oil-wells in all America.  He was just about to be another Peabody when a fearful accident suddenly ended his life; he was burnt in an enormous fire that destroyed one of his establishments.

“As to her mother, Miss Sarah says she lost her when she was quite young, in a most romantic, though horrible manner”—­

“What!” broke in Daniel, “has nobody taken the trouble to ascertain if all these statements are true?”

“I am sure I do not know.  This much is certain, that sometimes curious facts leak out.  For instance, I have fallen in with Americans who have known a broker Brandon, a Gen. Brandon, a Petroleum Brandon.”

“He may have borrowed the name.”

“Certainly, especially when the original man is said to have died in America.  However, Miss Brandon has been living now for five years in Paris.  She came here accompanied by a Mrs. Brian, a relative of hers, who is the dryest, boniest person you can imagine, but at the same time the slyest woman I have ever seen.  She also brought with her a kind of protector, a Mr. Thomas Elgin, also a relation of hers, a most extraordinary man, stiff like a poker, but evidently a dangerous man, who never opens his mouth except when he eats.  He is a famous hand at small-swords, however, and snuffs his candle, nine times out of ten, at a distance of thirty yards.  This Mr. Thomas Elgin, whom the world calls familiarly Sir Thorn, and Mrs. Brian, always stay with Miss Sarah.

“When she first arrived, Miss Sarah established herself in a house near the Champs Elysees, which she furnished most sumptuously.  Sir Thorn, who is a jockey of the first water, had discovered a pair of gray horses for her which made a sensation at the Bois de Boulogne, and drew everybody’s attention to their fair owner.  Heaven knows how she had managed to get a number of letters of introduction.  But certainly two or three of the most influential members of the American colony here received her at their houses.  After that, all was made easy.  Gradually she crept into society; and now she is welcome almost everywhere, and visits, not only at the best houses, but even in certain families which have a reputation of being quite exclusive.