was herself engaged in close confabulation with Lavaux and the Prince d’Athis. You must have seen the Prince d’Athis driving about Mousseaux with the Duchess. ‘Sammy,’ as he is called, is a long, thin, bald man, with stooping shoulders, a crinkled face as white as wax, and a black beard reaching half down his chest, as if his hair, falling from his head, had lodged upon his chin. He never speaks, and when he looks at you seems shocked at your daring to breathe the same air as he. He is high in the service, has a close, mysterious, English air which reminds you that he is Lord Palmerston’s great-nephew, and is in high repute at the Institute and on the Quai d’Orsay. He is said to be the only French diplomatist whom Bismarck never dared to look in the face. It is supposed that he will very shortly have one of the great Embassies. Then what will become of the Duchess? To leave Paris and follow him would be a serious thing for a leader of society. And then abroad the world might refuse to accept their equivocal relations, which here are looked upon almost as marriage, in consideration of the propriety of their conduct and their respect for appearances, and considering also the sad state of the Duke, half paralysed and twenty-years older than his wife, who is also his niece. The Prince, was no doubt discussing these grave matters with Lavaux and Madame Astier when I drew near. A man just arrived in any society, no matter where, soon finds how much he is ‘out of it,’ He understands neither the phrases current nor the thoughts, and is a nuisance. I was just leaving when that kind Madame Astier called me back, saying, ‘Will you not go up and see him? He will be so glad.’ So I went up a narrow staircase in the wall to see my old master. I heard his loud voice from the end of the passage, ‘Is that you, Fage?’ ‘No, sir,’ said I. ‘Why, it’s Freydet! Take care; keep your head down.’ It was in fact impossible to stand upright under the sloping roof. What a different place from the Foreign Office, where I last saw him, in a lofty gallery lined with portfolios.