Our apartment was situate in the Avenue Gabriel—to my taste, the most delightful location in Paris. Near, yet not actually in, the Champs Elysées, it combines cheerfulness and gaiety with privacy and retirement. Our apartment was _au rez de chaussée_ (on the ground floor), all the rooms, as is usual in Paris, _en suite_. It had been furnished with remarkable taste by a Russian Princess, who, being suddenly recalled by the Czar, was glad to let her apartment to English ladies—on, to us, most advantageous terms. We were, therefore, lodged as few strangers may hope to be. The suite of rooms were now thrown open, and brilliantly lighted—all except Evelyn’s boudoir, which led into the conservatory, and in which reigned a subdued light, inviting to lovers or to those who prefer to muse in solitude and watch the crowd from afar. At present, all were congregated in the _salon_, around the fair hostess, who herself looked like a queen surrounded by her court. “_Ah! ma chère_,” exclaimed a pretty vivacious little marquise, perfumed like a rose, as only a French woman can be—“your _soirée_ is really charming—delicious—but pardon me, there are two things, or rather persons, wanting to make your réunion perfect.” “Indeed,” replied Evelyn, smiling; “and pray, who may these be?” “Nay, you must guess,” rejoined another fair lady of the party; “for, at present, those two persons are indispensable in the _beau monde_.” “Perhaps,” suggested Evelyn, “you mean my dear friend Rossini?” “Oh! no; we are all aware he is quite a hermit.” “The Emperor, perhaps, and the peerless Castiglione?” “Neither, I assure you,” persisted the pretty marquise. “Well, Wagner, the ‘musician of the future.’” “Madame, you surprise me,” said a beautiful Spanish countess, advancing into the circle—“you a _dame du grand monde_, and not to have heard of the great magician _par exemple_!” “And who, pray, may that be, countess?” “Oh!” drawled an Englishman, “the man who calls up the devil, and made Napoleon come out of his tomb and sign his name, or something of that sort.” “And,” added another, “frightened poor Eugenie out of her wits.” “No very difficult matter, either,” growled an old legitimist with a brown wig, “considering how few wits she has, if report speak true.” “_Fi donc, monsieur_” or “not so bad,” chimed in the audience at this rather obvious _witticism_ in every sense. “I suppose,” said Evelyn “you mean Home, the Medium. We are, I believe, to meet him next week. So your swan, Madame la Marquise, has turned out to be a goose, after all. And now for that other, without whom no party is complete.” “That, madame,” said a young Frenchman, full of conceit and affectation, “is a long-bony American, about whom, it appears, all the ladies are raving—though, _ma foi_, I cannot imagine what for, except that they say he is enormously rich.”