The work appears anonymously; and it might be uncourteous to pry into the condition of the writer, beyond what it has pleased herself to reveal. This is to the effect that she came to Paris, unmarried, and hardly out of her teens, from some part of Germany, in the second year of the Restoration, and, at first, was chiefly conversant with the circles of the _haute finance_. We afterwards hear of her marriage, of journeyings and absences, and see her in contact with various circles, but, above all, with painters and musicians; intimate also with Henriette, the daughter of the celebrated Jewish philosopher, Mendelssohn. She left Paris, she further says, before the explosion of 1848. More of her personal history she does not tell--and we shall not take the liberty of guessing. Her notes are penned without any attempt at order; and make no pretence to dive far beneath the surface of what she saw in the world. They contain such light, lady-like reflections as one may fancy taken down without effort from the kaleidoscope of Paris life, in its balls, _soirées_, and promenades; and such anecdotes of notable things and persons as were current in ordinary company--many of which are well known, having been already reported by others. Here and there a graphic trait, or a remark above the level of commonplace, gives token of more lively intelligence, but the general character of the reminiscence is merely gossipping--just on the ordinary level of such observations and ideas as prevail in the common talk of the saloons. It is only when she touches on the fine arts, especially on music, that the lady displays decidedly clever notions of her own. Gleanings of this easy kind, from any lesser field than Paris, might hardly have been worth preserving; here, the abundance of matter is so great, that even the most careless hand returns from that strange harvest with some gatherings of value. Among these we shall dip here and there, without attempting more order in selection than the author herself has observed in arranging her notes. Each may be read by and for itself without any disadvantage whatever. In no respect, perhaps, does the Paris of to-day differ more from that of thirty years since than in the article of domestic comfort. After praising Madame Thuret, one of the financial _lionnes_ of the Restoration, for her attention to neatness, the lady adds:--