I started out early the next morning to find the Rue de Grâce, where the inscription on my photographic view of the premises represented them as situated. The town was in the condition of a provincial town in England about a century ago. The streets were as dirty as the total absence of drains and scavengers could make them, and the cleanest path was up the kennel in the centre. The filth of the houses was washed down into them by pipes, with little cisterns at each story, and under almost every window. There were many improprieties, and some indecencies, shocking to English sensibilities. In the Rue de Grâce I saw two nuns in their hoods and veils, unloading a cart full of manure. A ladies' school for English people in a town like this seemed ridiculous. There was no difficulty in finding the houses in my photographic view. There were two of them, one standing in the street, the other lying back beyond a very pleasant garden. A Frenchman was pacing up and down the broad gravel-path which connected them, smoking a cigar, and examining critically the vines growing against the walls. Two little children were gambolling about in close white caps, and with frocks down to their heels. Upon seeing me, he took his cigar from his lips with two fingers of one hand, and lifted his hat with the other. I returned the salutation with a politeness as ceremonious as his own. "Monsieur is an Englishman?" he said, in a doubtful tone. "From the Channel Islands," I replied. "Ah! you belong to us," he said, "but you are hybrid, half English, half French; a fine race. I also have English blood in my veins." I paid monsieur a compliment upon the result of the admixture of blood in his own instance, and then proceeded to unfold my object in visiting him. "Ah!" he said, "yes, yes, yes; Perrier was an impostor. These houses are mine, monsieur. I live in the front, yonder; my daughter and son-in-law occupy the other. We had the photographs taken for our own pleasure, but Perrier must have bought them from the artist, no doubt. I have a small cottage at the back of my house; voilà, monsieur! there it is. Perrier rented it from me for two hundred francs a year. I permitted him to pass along this walk, and through our coach-house into a passage which leads to the street where madame had her school. Permit me, and I will show it to you." He led me through a shed, and along a dirty, vaulted passage, into a mean street at the back. A small, miserable-looking house stood in it, shut up, with broken _persiennes_ covering the windows. My heart sank at the idea of Olivia living here, in such discomfort, and neglect, and sordid poverty. "Did you ever see a young English lady here, monsieur?" I asked; "she arrived about the beginning of last November."