One of my sisters, Amy, the eldest, had been ill that winter, and was not equal to joining in the gayeties that the others enjoyed. Her principal amusement was walking in the Gardens of Monceaux, a private domain of King Louis Philippe in the Batignolles, a quiet, humdrum spot, where she could set her foot upon green turf and gravel. The streets of Paris, the Boulevards, and the Champs Elysees were too attractive to a pleasure-seeker like myself to allow me to content myself with the pale attractions of Monceaux, but I went there with my sister once or twice, because French etiquette forbade her walking even in these quiet garden-paths alone. One day it was proposed by her that we should go again. I could not, in common humanity, refuse, and so consented. Poor Amy "put on her things," as our girls called it, and we descended to the porte-cochere, intending to engage the first passing citadine. As we stepped into the street, however, a gay carriage with high-stepping gray horses, a chasseur with knife and feathers, and a coachman in a modest livery on a hammer-cloth resplendent with yellow fringes and embroideries, drew up at our door: a pretty hand was laid upon the portiere and a voice cried, "Amy! Amy! I was coming for you." "My brother--Miss Leare," said Amy. Miss Leare bowed to me gracefully and motioned to her chasseur to open the carriage-door. "Get in," she said. "_I_ have the carriage for two hours: what shall we do with it? Mamma is at the dentist's.--Amy, I thought you would enjoy a drive, and so I came for you." I helped Amy in, and was making my bow when Miss Leare stopped me. "Come too," she said cordially: "Amy's brother surely need not be taboo. Shall we drive to the Bois?" "I was going to Monceaux," said Amy. "Would it be quite the thing for us to drive alone to the Bois?" "Oh-h-h!" said Miss Leare, prolonging her breath upon the vocative.--"You see," she added, turning to me, "I am so unprepared by previous training that I shall never become _au fait_ in French proprieties. Indeed, I hold them in great reverence, but they seem to be for ever hedging me in; nor can I understand the meaning of half of them. In America I was guided by plain right and wrong.--Why shall we not outrage etiquette, Amy, by 'going alone,' as you call it, to Monceaux? Is it that the place is so stiff and solemn and out of the way that we may walk there without a chaperon? I should have thought seclusion made a place more dangerous, allowing that there be any danger at all.--In America, Mr. Farquhar, your escort would be enough for us, and the fact that Amy is your sister would give a sort of double security to your protection." "Oh, dear Miss Leare--" began Amy.