For they, at least, bring something back to their own country: themselves, and pretty frocks and bonnets, and a certain wider knowledge of the world. That is not much, but it is more than the American Colony does. [Illustration: "STANDING ON THEIR FEET FOR HOURS AT A TIME"] There is something fine in the idea of a colony, of a body of men and women who strike out for themselves in a new country, who cut out their homes in primeval forests, and who make their peace with the native barbarians. The Pilgrim Fathers and the early settlers in Australia and South Africa and amidst the snows of Canada were colonists of whom any mother-nation might be proud; but the emigrants who shrink at the crudeness of our present American civilization, who shirk the responsibilities of our government, who must have a leisure class with which to play, and who are shocked by the familiarity of our press, are colonists who leave their country for their country's good. The American Colony in Paris is in a strange position. Its members are neither the one thing nor the other. They cannot stand in the shadow of the Arc de Triomphe and feel that any part of its glory falls on them, nor can they pretend an interest in the defeat of Tammany Hall, nor claim any portion in the magnificent triumph of the Chicago Fair. Their attitude must always be one of explanation; they are continually on the defensive; they apologize to the American visitor and to the native Frenchman; they have declined their birthright and are voluntary exiles from their home. The only way by which they can justify their action is either to belittle what they have given up, or to emphasize the benefits which they have received in exchange, and these benefits are hardly perceptible. They remain what they are, and no matter how long it may have been since they ceased to be Americans, they do not become Frenchmen. They are a race all to themselves; they are the American Colony.