I meet a great many Americans who, as a general thing, I must say, are not so polite to me as the people over here. The people over here—especially the gentlemen—are much more what I should call almost oppressively attentive. I don’t know whether Americans are more truly sincere; I haven’t yet made up my mind about that. The only drawback I experience is when Americans sometimes express surprise that I should be travelling round alone; so you see it doesn’t come from Europeans. I always have my answer ready: “For general culture, to acquire the languages and to see Europe for myself”; and that generally seems to calm them. Dear mother, my money holds out very well, and it is real interesting. II FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME _September_ 16. Since I last wrote to you I’ve left that nice hotel and come to live in a French family—which, however, is nice too. This place is a kind of boarding-house that’s at the same time a kind of school; only it’s not like an American boarding-house, nor like an American school either. There are four or five people here that have come to learn the language—not to take lessons, but to have an opportunity for conversation. I was very glad to come to such a place, for I had begun to realise that I wasn’t pressing onward quite as I had dreamed with the French. Wasn’t I going to feel ashamed to have spent two months in Paris and not to have acquired more insight into the language? I had always heard so much of French conversation, and I found I wasn’t having much more opportunity to practise it than if I had remained at Bangor. In fact I used to hear a great deal more at Bangor from those French-Canadians who came down to cut the ice than I saw I should ever hear at that nice hotel where was no struggle—_some_ fond struggle being my real atmosphere. The lady who kept the books seemed to want so much to talk to me in English (for the sake of practice, too, I suppose)—she kind of yearned to struggle too: we don’t yearn _only_ down in Maine—that I couldn’t bear to show her I didn’t like it. The chambermaid was Irish and all the waiters German, so I never heard a word of French spoken. I suppose you might hear a great deal in the shops; but as I don’t buy anything—I prefer to spend my money for purposes of culture—I don’t have that advantage.