A flaming blonde, whose brow was crowned with an aurora of auburn hair, was the next to burst upon the epigrammatic scene. She spoke English with an excellent Parisian accent. "One has called me a young woman in a hurry," she said, "and the description does not want of truth. I am impatient; I have large ideas; I am ambitious. If I were a grocer I should contract for the Sahara. I fall in love, and when Alice Leroux falls in love it is like the volcano which goes to make eruption. Figure to yourself that my man is shy--but of a shyness of the most ridiculous--that it is necessary to make a thousand sweet eyes at him before he comprehends that he loves me. And when he comprehends it, he does not speak. _Mon Dieu_, he does not speak, though I speak, me, with fan, my eyes, my fingers, almost with my lips. He walks with me--but he does not speak. He takes me to the spectacle--but he does not speak. He promenades himself in boat with me--but he does not speak. I encircle him with my arms, and I speak with my lips at last--one, two, three, four, five, kisses. Overwhelmed, astonished, he returns me my kisses--hesitatingly, stupidly, but in fine, he returns them And then at last--with our faces together, my arm round his graceful waist--he speaks. The first words of love comes from his mouth--and what think you that he say? Say then." [Illustration: _I encircle him with my arms and speak with my lips._] "I love you?" murmured Lillie. "A thousand thunders! No! He says: 'Miss Leroux--Alice; may I call you Alice?'" "I see nothing to wonder at in that," replied Lillie quietly. "Remember that for a man to kiss you is a less serious step than for him to call you Alice. That were a stage on the road to marriage, and should only be reached through the gate of betrothal. Changes of name are the outward marks of a woman's development as much as changes of form accompany the growth of the caterpillar. You, for instance, began life as Alice. In due course you became Miss Alice; if you were the eldest daughter you became Miss Leroux at once; if you were not, you inherited the name only on your sister's death or marriage; when you are betrothed you will revert to the simple Alice, and when you are married you will become Mrs. Something Else; and every time you get married, if you are careful to select husbands of varying patronymics, you will be furnished with a change of name as well as of address. Providence, which has conferred so many sufferings upon woman, has given her this one advantage over man, who in the majority of instance is doomed to the monotony of ossified nomenclature, and has to wear the same name on his tombstone which he wore on his Eton collar."