subsequent visits were always sober but in excellent taste about this time of day the two rooms were a little dark the electric lights being reserved for the more crowded hours yet there were always a few people here this evening when we entered i noticed a half dozen men and three or four young women lounging here in a preliminary way and i made out by degrees that the mistress of this place had a following of a in tlie scheme of things � that certain men and women came here for reasons of and that she would take a certain type of struggling maiden if she were good looking and ambitious and smart under her wing the girl would have to know how to dress well to be able to carry herself with an air and when money was being spent very by an admirer it might as well be spent at this three guides bar on occasion as anywhere else there was obviously an between madame g and all the young women who came in here they seemed so much at home that it was quite like a family party everybody appeared to be genial cheerful and to know everybody else to enter here was to feel as though you had lived in paris for years while we are sitting at a table a brandy and enter de b the brisk genial sympathetic french personage whose voice on the instant gave me a delightful impression of her it was the loveliest voice i have ever heard soft and musical a voice touched with both gaiety and sadness her eyes were light blue her hair brown and her manner and she seemed to have the spirit of a delightfully friendly dog or child and all the gaiety and that goes with either after i had been introduced she laughed and putting aside her and stole shook herself into a comfortable position in a corner and accepted a brandy and she was so interested for the moment exchanging and with that i had a chance to observe her keenly in a moment she turned to me and wanted to know whether i knew either of two american authors whom she knew � men of considerable knowing them both very well it surprised me to think that she knew them she seemed from the way she spoke to have been on the terms with both of them and any one by looking at her could have understood why they should have taken such an interest in her now you know that n he is very nice i was very fond of him and r he is clever don t you think i admitted at once that they were both very able men a at forty and that i was glad that she knew them she informed me that she had known mr r and mr n in london and that she had there her english which was very good indeed explained in full who i was and how long i would be in paris and that he had written her from america because he wanted her to show me some attention during my stay in paris if de b had been of a somewhat more calculating type i fancy that with her intense charm of face and manner and her intellect and voice she would have been very successful i gained the impression that she had been on the stage in some small capacity but she had been too � not really brazen enough � for the grim world in which the french rises i soon found that de b was a charming of emotion desire and refinement which had strayed into the wrong field she would have done better in literature or music or art and she seemed fitted by her moods and her understanding to be a light in any one of them or all some are so � missing by a what they would give all the world to have it is the little things that do it � the the bits the capacity for taking pains in little things that make as so many have said the difference between success and failure and it is true i shall never forget how she looked at me quite in the spirit of a gay uncertain child and how quickly she made me feel that we would get along very well together why yes she said quite easily in her soft voice i will go about with you although i would not know what is best to see but i shall be here and if you want to come for me we can see things together suddenly she reached over and took my hand and squeezed it as though to seal the bargain we had more drinks to this rather three guides sion and then de b promising to join us at the went away it was high time then to dress for dinner and so we returned to the hotel we ate a meal watching the and his lady love or his wife arrive in and dine with that and enthusiasm which is so characteristic of the french when we came out of this at half after eleven de b was anxious to return to her apartment and was anxious to give me an extra taste of the varied life of paris in order that i might be able to contrast and compare if you know where they are and see whether you like them you can tell whether you want to see any more of them � which i hope you won t said he wisely leading the way through a crowd that was for all the world like a rushing tide of the sea there are no traffic laws in paris so far as i could make out certainly have the right of way and they go like mad i have read of the authorities having 