The royal gentleman gnashes his false teeth in vain, and has scene after scene with the royal son, who, green with rage, reproaches him for having parted with these treasures. But the shares are safely in the clutches of papa in New York, far away, and furnishing the wherewithal to provide his daughter with the most wonderful horses and equipages in Paris. She pays as much for one horse as her husband gains by his music in a year, and as for the poor prodigal prince, who is overrun with debts, he would be thankful to have even a widowed papa's mite of her vast wealth. Another lady, whose virtue is some one else's reward, has a magnificent and much- talked-of hotel in the Champs Élysées, where there is a staircase worth a million francs, made of real alabaster. Prosper Mérimée said: "C'est par là qu'on monte à la vertu." Her salons are filled every evening with cultured men of the world, and they say that the most refined tone reigns supreme--that is more than one can say of every salon in Paris. I am taking lessons of Delle Sedie. He is a delightful teacher; he is so intelligent and has such beautiful theories, and so many of them, that he takes up about half the time of my lesson talking them over. This is one of the things he says: "Take your breath from your boots." It sounds better said in French: _Prenez votre respiration dans vos bottines._ I don't think he realizes what he says or what he wants me to do. When I told him that I had sung somewhere unwillingly, having been much teased, he said: "You must not be too amiable. You must not sing when and what one asks. There is nothing like being begged. You are not a hand- organ, _pardieu_, that any one can play when they like." And this sort of talk alternates with my songs until time is up, when off I run or go, feeling that I have learned little but talked much. However, sometimes I do feel compensated; for when, to demonstrate a point, he will sing a whole song, I console myself by thinking that I have been to one of his concerts and paid for my ticket.