“Cheap! Yes, so it is, if you are willing to live as Parisians live—that is, with no luxuries, and scarce any comforts. I suppose you can live cheap here, if you take attic rooms, with hardly any furniture, and eat in all sorts of odd places. That is the way half the French people live, and Americans can do it too, if they please, abroad—which they cannot do at home. Pleasures are cheap, to be sure; that is, of the inferior sort. But I should say there was scarce enough to compensate people accustomed to a different style of living, in French vaudevilles and street amusements, for such sacrifices.” “Hardly,” replied Miss Collingwood; “but how is it, then, that you are so delighted with Europe?” “Why, in the first place, we don’t _all_ live exactly in the way I have described. You can have luxuries and comforts too, beside exquisite pleasures, if you please to pay for them. But then the expense is enormous.” And so Miss Falconer continued to let Miss Collingwood know that what she had been saying only applied to other Americans, not to themselves at all. “And, moreover,” she continued, “there is much of excitement and novelty abroad, that carries one through a great deal. And perhaps most of us think it was pleasanter in looking back than it was in the reality. I dare say Mrs. Fielding actually believes she enjoyed herself excessively. But I should say the pleasantest part of her trip was the getting home,” she added, smiling. “Then you do not think she need be spoilt for America, by all she has seen abroad?” pursued Miss Collingwood. “She spoilt! No, indeed!” replied Miss Falconer. “I don’t deny that there is a great deal to be enjoyed there, that can’t be enjoyed at home. But I think Mrs. Fielding may enjoy a great deal at home, she certainly never enjoyed abroad.” And so saying, Miss Falconer rose and bid Miss Collingwood good morning. “It’s very strange,” observed Miss Collingwood, afterward, to her sister, “that so few Americans give the same story of themselves and each other abroad. They all tell you that they only were in society, and that others were not. It is really amusing to hear them. I wonder, now, who tells the truth, the Fieldings or the Falconers?” “Both, and—neither,” replied her sister, laughing. “How so?” “They tell truth of each other, but not of themselves. I mean,” continued the younger Miss Collingwood. “That may be it!” exclaimed Miss Collingwood. “_That_ never occurred to me before. And then, how they all talk of being ‘spoilt for this country,’ by their travels.”